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About a quarter of Michigan counties are among the top 20% of counties in America for increase in unemployment and deaths per 1000 residents from the coronavirus. Only Massachusetts and New Jersey have fared worse. This WSJ analysis was based on federal government county level unemployment data. In May Michigan's 21.2% unemployment rate was the third highest in America after Nevada and Hawaii, two states where tourism drop hit hard. In a place like Muskegon the loss of about a million tourists and loss of jobs at Howmet Aerospace hit hard. Recovery of tourism could bring down the rate quickly, yet manufacturing will take longer.

Other states with many counties in the top 20% for deaths from virus and unemployment are Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New York.

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How the US remains divided on something as basic as masks during the coronavirus wave. Here is the situation in one hard hit state- Michigan in the US midwest.

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U.S. daily coronavirus cases reach a high of 88,000 on October 29. About 46,000 people are hospitalized in the U.S. Increases in following states - Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Maine. About 1000 daily deaths are reported.

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Worsenign outbreaks of coronavirus in the midwest U.S. comes with resumption of sports games on Oct. 23. Campuses at Michigan State, Minnesota and Nebraska see infection rates in the general population of over 5%. Rates are also high at the University of Michigan  in Ann Arbor. Community viral spread factor is missing in the effort to restart sports games, and has drawn criticism from local governments.

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Massachusetts is moving into no. 3 or no. 4 position after New York and New Jersey and possibly Michigan in coronavirus cases with 34,000 reported. More than 3700 were hospitalized  in the state.

Massachusetts is close to hotspot New York. It also has a more aggressive testing strategy and is hiring hundreds of volunteers to do contract tracing, and uses Partners in Health, a nonprofit. Michigan and Massachusetts have followed a more aggressive strategy of testing compared to California which has taken a different approach of not doing aggressive testing and contact tracing leading to lower numbers in California now adjusted for population that could be different later on.

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With about one fourth the population of California Michigan has done approximately 100,000 tests, compared to about 213,000 in California. This is about twice the rate of testing in Michigan- with the help of the U.S. government- compared to testing taking place so far in California. The lack of aggressive testing in California could also mean there is a lot that remains unknown about the extent of the spread of coronavirus in California. 

That Governor Newson ordered New York to shelter in place on March 19, 3 days after the stricter stay at home order in France on March 16 requiring a document to show police to go outside, shows California like the rest of the country was not that much different. Beaches were packed in California on the weekend of March 15. A lot remains unknown at this point about the spread of the virus. The urban sprawl areas in Michigan are as hard hit as Detroit.

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Pennsylvania is one of the critical states in the 2020 U.S. election. It is also one of the states hit hard by the coronavirus. Pennsylvania has also seen the impact of layoffs in the vital steel industry during two decades of neglect by previous administrations till the tariffs on steel from China by president Trump began a reversal of this trend. Unemployment is high in Pennsylvania as a result of the pandemic. 51 of 67 counties in the state recorded unemployment rate increases for 2020 that are in the top 20% for the U.S. Pennsylvania and Michigan are two critical states for the 2020 election. Pennsylvania has done much worse than other states including Michigan when it comes to the impact of the pandemic on unemployment rates in all counties. Voters could decide to blame the Democratic governor for lockdown restrictions  that worsened unemployment or president Trump for his approach to the coronavirus. There is also concern among conservative voters about the kind of change they seek between steady improvement in unemployment and a shift to radical changes in the economy. ...

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Young people are the major source of transmission of coronavirus in the US with school sports as a major cause. Michigan, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, makeup 42% of cases on April 11. Adults ages 20 to 39 are affected the most in Michigan. With cases for children under 19 quadrupling from a month ago. 301 reported school outbreaks in Michigan alone. A big problem is that the spread of the variant B.1.1.7  from the UK started in clusters earlier in February. It now has spread to the general population. India has seen a surge in the past 5 days and public health officials are learning from this experience in Europe and the US. The focus  should be on micro containment zones, prime minister Modi told state chief ministers in a virtual meeting on April 10, with screening, testing, tracking, and that health officials should not let higher numbers affect their persistent effort to screen, test and track as with the unceasing effort the results will come. ...

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In this excellent report from the WSJ reporters talk to people in key counties in battleground states. Issues people see as important are covered to get a feel for how they think. The four topics on people's minds are-

1.  Business and the Economy

2.  Race and Policing

3. Climate

4. Agriculture and Trade

5. Coronavirus

President Trump has popular support for work on the economy, and in agriculture and trade. He faces criticism for the surge in the coronavirus cases during the second wave.

States selected for understanding people's views and thinking- In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia county. In Wisconsin, Sauk County. In Michigan Macomb and Wayne counties. In Florida Lee county. In Georgia, Peach county. In North Carolina, Watauga county. In Arizona, Maricopa county. Other states include Maine, Iowa, and Colorado.

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The economic damage is larger in some states with a larger manufacturing base and one tending to be cyclical. 20% of Michigan's GDP is in auto manufacturing. The large jump in cases to 40,000 and 3600 deaths have led to stricter quarantine. The unemployment rate in Michigan is forecast at 23% much higher than the national average of 16% that peaks in May. It is also likely to last longer till early 2020. As a result of the strict quarantine  larger parts of retail, service and construction sectors are affected. This has led to protests in areas where the coronavirus threat is not as large as it is in Detroit.

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This NYT report looks at the 20 counties within 5 battleground states in the midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, eastern state of Pennsylvania, southern state of North Carolina and western state of Arizona. It shows the percentage of votes gained by the Republican and Democratic parties in the last 3 presidential elections. A look at the trend and direction of vote percentages gained by each party in each of the 20 counties in different states may be a better indication of the final result than polls alone as both parties are pushing hard in the 2020 election down to the last day. The Republicans strong in the ground game and organized effort, and Democrats in television advertising outspending the Republicans. Because of the clearly delineated positions the Democrats and Republicans stand in sharp contrast to each other both in image and substance.  Because of the Electoral College and states assigned electoral votes based on size the U.S. system is not based on the total vote count in the country. Who wins each state by vote count and gets the assigned electoral college votes assigned to that state, an builds up more than 270 Electoral College votes wins the election for president of the USA.  In Michigan there is the impact of the resurgence of the auto industry, with president Trump pulling out of TPP agreement and renegotiating NAFTA in favor of the U.S. auto industry bringing back jobs from Mexico. This puts the union vote in the auto industry- with Ford, GM and Chrysler located in Michigan- favoring these auto friendly policies from the current administration. The resilience of the auto industry sales during coronavirus is part of the economic story in Michigan. The renegotiated NAFTA treaty also helped dairy farmers of Wisconsin increase sales to Canada. In Pennsylvania the coronavirus and economic impact has hit harder than in Michigan with the decline in oil prices and effect on fracking industry. Closure of coal plants is also having a negative impact on the state. Tariffs on Chinese steel by the administration are helping the steel industry. Offsetting these economic stories is perception of how the coronavirus pandemic has been tackled by the administration. Added to this is the suburban women's vote and the shift of out of state liberal voters to suburbs in North Carolina (Wake county), and in Arizona (Maricopa county and Tucson area). States not covered here but also relevant are Minnesota which could be a battleground state in the midwest and Iowa. Racial protests in Minneapolis add another dimension with controversies about the policing in cities such as Minneapolis and recently Philadelphia. The sharp contrasts in image as well as policy, the coronavirus pandemic and the handling of the pandemic as well as the way rallies are being conducted differently by both candidates, and the economic stories, present an election like no other since the 1960's. The contrast is as sharp as between Gen. Dwight Eisenhower of the wartime allied effort and Adlai Stevenson a liberal and humanist in the 1952 election. That election saw some of the highest turnouts since the second world war, and this is now happening today. That election also determined the direction of postwar growth and dominance of American industry, the setting up of the National Highway system and important changes that were later continued under the Kennedy administration. It also marked the beginning of the Cold War following the Korean War under the Truman administration, a situation that is emerging in a different way today with the free world and the tension from relations with China. ...

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Metro Detroit has 90% of the 17,000 cases in Michigan as the pandemic reaches its peak there this week.  The large Detroit airport renovated and enlarged is seen as a source of the coronavirus as Detroit is where all 3 auto U.S. auto companies are located. GM, and Ford have large manufacturing operations in China, and  Chrysler has plants in northern Italy, the locations where coronavirus has hit hard, and in the case of China where it originated. Health experts say the busy Detroit international airport connecting the Detroit hub to other auto hubs in northern Italy and China- both virus hotspots- may have contributed to the virus hitting Detroit early. This country to country transmission along some route is how the virus has traveled to over 150 countries. For instance German reports show Bavaria as the source of the early cases in Italy's Lombardy region. It could be that German auto companies located in Bavaria with large operations in China resulted in inadvertent transmission of the virus from China through airport in Munich from flights between Germany and China. A Shenyang municipal bureau report provides information on German  investment in Shenyang, Liaoning province. Munich based BMW makes 1.3 million cars here. There is also the newly built Chinese German Tiexi industrial park in Shenyang with 50 German companies BASF, Siemens, located there.  Once the virus arrives in one location its spread depends on the environment with densely packed areas and the health conditions prevailing in a particular area playing their part. Both in New York and Detroit metro area this helped its faster spread in lower income densely packed areas.   ...

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The Trump administration suspended all flights from Europe on March 13, about one month after suspending all flights from China. This report in the NYT says there were about 10,000 estimated undetected infections in New York on March 1 when only 1 case of coronavirus was confirmed. It also says that researchers have tracked the mutations of the virus in all American states and found that most of it came from New York. Could the Trump administration have acted earlier than March 13 to stop flights from Europe? The state and city authorites in New York did not take the threat seriously by March 13, making it not clear that they would have acted earlier.   In places like Michigan which has Italian Fiat owned Chrysler operations, and automotive connections with Munich, Germany, reports show the virus coming from Europe. Munich based auto companies have extensive operations in China. In Louisiana the Mardi Gras celebrations around Feb. 25, received large numbers of visitors from New York, with research showing the virus mutations in Louisiana originated in New York. There was little awareness of the seriousness of the virus because of lack of past experience as happened in Asian countries. So that these kinds of public events bringing huge numbers of people in close contact were allowed to happen, and people who were cautious were likely to be ridiculed or shoved aside. New York continued to hold public gatherings at Madison Square Gardens and sports stadiums well into March, with complete disregard of the dangers, a decision made by local authorites.   ...

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With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

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WSJ looks at how businesses are coping and how the government and the financial institutions are trying to make handling the stress of coronavirus easier and recovery easier. Bedrock is one of the financial firms that is forgiving rent for small bookshops, retailers, restaurants, gyms and other stores in Detroit, Michigan. Bedrock owns 50% of the leasable commercial real estate space in Detroit's 1.4 square mile downtown business district. In all it covers about 40% of downtown Detroit and retail. A similar program is underway in Seattle with help from Amazon. This story shows how Mr. Cullen who is Bedrock's CEO is doing this. He reports to Mr. Gilbert, a billionaire, who is also owner of Quicken Loans lender, Cleveland Cavaliers sports team. Mr. Gilbert is recovering from a severe stroke he had this year. This makes the job harder for Cullen as he has to seek approval from Mr. Gilbert and show this is something that will also benefit Mr. Gilbert. This will make recovery in Detroit easier. He says Detroit suffered badly in the 2008 economic crisis, and he does not want to see this happen again. Fortunately Mr. Gilbert, who is in therapy, has approved the action of Mr. Cullen. Cullen has to show that out of work local people in Detroit and empty storefronts hurts Mr. Gilbert as well as Detroit. So both come out winners from forgiveness for rent for a couple of months.   ...