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The coronavirus pandemic death toll reaches 700,000 making it the deadliest in history. In 2021 the death toll increased with another wave now in the southern and western states such as Florida, Texas in the south, and California, Idaho in the west, with deaths concentrated among the unvaccinated.

The vaccination drive stalled by August 2021 leaving a large number of people between 18-35 unvaccinated mostly in the south and some in western states. States with large Republican support tended to show higher vaccination resistance though the reasons for not getting vaccinated were complex and some misinformation played apart in fear of vaccines. Vaccine supplies were ample in the US.

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For the first time deaths in Britain from coronavirus exceed 100,000. Deaths reached 103,602 on January 27, 2021, with all of the UK in lockdown again. Britain now has the highest coronavirus deaths per million population in the world. Analysis in The Times looks at what went wrong.

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The two waves of the coronavirus in India can be compared looking at the graphs and this report in the Times of India. The case volume and deaths in the worst hit state Maharashtra is shown here. The case volume increased by about 50% in the second wave but deaths were about half that in the first wave. Most of the deaths were in the people over 65 and most of the cases in the ages below 40 years. In the over 65 age only 5% have been vaccinated which means that medical management is still the best way of tackling the coronavirus. Vaccine supplies are the bottleneck and this is beginning to change- so that by August ample supplies of the vaccine should make the difference in bringing down cases and deaths.  Lockdowns are managed carefully so that the economy can recover in the second half of 2021 and in 2022.  Any assessment of the crisis management must take into account the speed of the response, its effectiveness, and keeping in mind the economic recovery needed following the pandemic. ...

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Italy faces tighter restrictions and a national lockdown at Easter for the coronavirus, Italians who were the first to go into lockdown on March 10, 2020, now think they will be the last to exit lockdowns. The mood in Europe is of frustration with the slow vaccination drive and the failure to procure enough vaccine supplies and to approve vaccines in time. The US and Britain have vaccination drives that are moving rapidly leading to a reduction in cases and deaths. In Europe new cases are rising since mid February 2021, and there is the spread of the new variant first detected in the UK.  The variants make up 70% of new cases in France says Health Minister Olivier Veran. ICU's in France are 80% full. Elections in France in 2022 and in Germany in September 2021 are leading to government reluctance to impose tighter restrictions. The government strategy is now being questioned. Only 30% of Germans now have confidence in chancellor Merkel's ability to make competent decisions. The CDU's partner in the government, the SDU socialists have even less trust with SDU getting less than 10%. There are signs of a third wave of coronavirus in Germany resulting from variants of the virus, slow vaccinations, and reopenings. ...

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London has fewer deaths than in a normal week in mid June 2020. This means that London is the first region in the UK to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. The figures from the Office of National Statistics show that London now has fewer deaths per week than in a normal week before the pandemic, about 3% lower.

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It is early July 2020 and U.S. coronavirus cases on July 10 are up to 63,000 with a surge in Texas, Arizona, Florida and California. New evidence suggests that about half of coronavirus cases may come from transmission by individuals who yet have no symptoms and don't know they have the virus. India is the other hotspot with close to 800,000 cases, 26,000 cases on July 10 and deaths at 21,000. Russia is the other hotspot with over 700,000 cases, 11,000 deaths.

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Vietnam has an excellent record in the coronavirus epidemic with zero deaths and 324 cases. No locally originated cases are seen. The country has an astounding 792 tests per confirmed case compared to 144 for Taiwan and 57 for South Korea. Vietnam acted quickly to close its borders, quarantine foreign travelers in camps, close schools, and imposed an early lockdown.  This gives Vietnam an opportunity to restart its economy and maintain its growth. With the reallocation of supply chains away from China underway, Vietnam sets an ambitious growth rate of 5% for 2020, down only slightly from 7% for 2019.  The coronavirus also had some positive effects including the digital transformation that is taking place-  the rate of online transactions in public services increased from 12% to 24% during the 2 month lockdown. The discipline showed in Vietnam for tackling the crisis contrasts with other countries in Europe and America. This report says some small businesses and export industries in clothing and shoes are affected, yet even a 3% growth rate in 2020 makes Vietnam a winner, as the future in 2021 looks good. ...

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The University of Washington Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation has doubled its forecast of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. to 135,000, about twice what it is today at 69,000, by early August 2020. This is based on the assumption that with reopening the economy and return to actively operating in offices and shops, in construction and factories, the social distancing will be relaxed. Factors such as rising temperatures are not seen as offsetting the increased mobility in reopening. Dr. Fauci, top U.S. infectious disease official said on My 4, that the relaxing of social distancing could get a rebound started considering the coronavirus "phenomenal capabilities of spreading like wildfire." There is concern that the cases may be much higher in Brazil where there is not much testing, even higher than in the U.S. according to one university study. Argentina is a contrast having imposed a lockdown much earlier and has only 246 coronavirus deaths. ...

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About 85% of people in Portugal a country of 10 million people are fully vaccinated in October 2021, highest in Europe. Strict precautions for prevention such as social distancing and mask remained in place after the surge in January 2021 which led to deaths at a rate that was three times the peak rate in the US.

On October 1, 2021 the restrictions such as 30% limit on filling soccer stadiums were lifted. For the Benefica vs Bayern Munich soccer game restrictions were lifted leading to filled stadiums with vaccination pass mandatory. As people return to indoors in winter this could still result in increase in cases. Because Portugal depends on tourism and stadiums are filled to capacity there is the risk of a smaller surge. Cruise ships are back in Portuguese ports and tourists,are back in large numbers. Soccer fans, fill subways, leading to new concern about a limited spread of the coronavirus.

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Latin America has made a huge turnaround through successful vaccination drives. Today more people are vaccinated as a percentage of the population in Latin America at 62% than in the US at 56% or Europe at 60%, according to Our World in Data project at Oxford University. There is little resistance to vaccines in Latin America after successful vaccine campaigns against yellow fever and other diseases. During the first year of the pandemic Latin America had one third of the deaths in the world with 8% of the population. Deaths after vaccination drives have dropped to 8%.  Brazil with 617,000 deaths from coronavirus was second only to the US with 800,000 deaths. Brazil is now back to normal after a successful vaccination drive that has 66% of the population fully vaccinated, and 80% with one dose, some of the highest rates in the world, according to Our World in Data at Oxford University. In Colombia with 50 million population about 50% of people are fully vaccinated. Cases have dropped from 30,000 in June to 2000 a day and deaths from 700 daily that month to 50 a day in December 2021. In Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital, 83% of three million population are fully vaccinated, 14% have received a booster. Buenos Aires city health minister says Argentine society has an affinity for vaccination campaigns. "They rapidly accepted receiving them," he says. Yet from the point of view of new variants emerging there is a different situation in rural areas. In industrial states such as Sao Paulo 78% are fully vaccinated, yet less than 40% are fully vaccinated in poor Amazon state of Roraima.   We make it a point to honor the brave reporters in these countries who provide the reports in the WSJ, as we did earlier for NYT Stephanie Nolan's reports from South Africa and Zambia about frontline workers against Omicron in Africa.  Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo, Jenny Carolina Gonzalez in Bogota, and Sylvina Frydlewsky in Buenos Aires and Kejal Vyas writing this report from San Salvador. ...

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The question whether the source of the coronavirus that led to deaths of more than 1 million Americans is a lab leak at a Wuhan lab in China is still being checked. The Energy Department says that with  "low confidence" it emerged from a lab leak at Wuhan, China. Earlier in 2021 the FBI stated that it was the result of a lab leak not a natural transmission. The Energy Department runs many labs doing research in the field. Petroleum exports supported the allied war effort in two world wars says this report in the WSJ. Europe is shunning Russian oil after its invasion of Ukraine.

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An important investigation by the Wall Street Journal looks at the 60 day sprint to find the origins of the Covid virus that killed about 6 million people worldwide, with excess deaths three times that. Did labs in the US and in China and scientists experiments cause this or did it happen naturally in the wilderness or in wild animal markets in China. Were other points of view excluded, asks the WSJ by NIC in it's 90 day sprint meeting with president Biden on August 24, 2021. WSJ Investigation says the FBI WMD scientist Banaan and scientists at the Defense Intelligence Council Hardham, Cutlip and Chretien were kept away from the president at a crucial final meeting of National Intelligence Council with Biden on the 90 day sprint to discover where this virus came from. Comparable is the  25 million people who died in the Black Death plague in Europe in 1348- Europe's population did not return to its pre-1348 level till the 16th century, says Britannica.  A scientist working at the FBI offices in Virginia Banaan was brought to main FBI offices for WMD to look into the origins of the virus in Feb. 2020. He and the FBI expected to be called in to see president Biden at a special meeting with Avril Haines, James Murphy of NIC. The FBI and Defense Intelligence Council scientists were not called in to see the president. Scientists on the DIC Council section on the Virus were not given a chance to share views or join the meeting by the Director DIC Scott Berrier who had his own theory on the virus, says WSJ. These scientists had done genomics research that showed a spike protein part of the virus that enable it to enter human cells was constructed in a lab, says WSJ. The WSJ investigation says the investigation sought by president Biden in a 90 day sprint was done with the National Intelligence Agency officials under Avril Haines, a State department official who joined the agency after the 90 day sprint, and James Murphy of the NIC who headed it's WMD section. WSJ report says the heads of Defense Intelligence Agency and NIC believed in what is called the zoonotics theory that the virus was of natural origins and simply transferred from animals to humans. A Lancet article in Feb 2020 by a group of scientists including Daczak of EcoHealth Alliance that supported coronavirus research at Wuhan had supported this theory in the interest of global cooperation to fight the virus but called any alternative explanations conspiracy theory, says WSJ, politicising something that should never be politicized.     ...

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India crosses the 10 million mark in coronavirus cases for the first time on December 18, 2020. The number of deaths is at 146,000. The U.S. is the only other country with over 10 million cases. U.S. has 17 million cases and 318,000 deaths on December 18. The daily cases in India peaked in September at about 94,000 and have declined to 27,000 in December. The U.S. meanwhile is hit by a second wave that is much worse than the first. Daily cases now are close to 250,000 on December 18, 2020. The daily cases in the second wave are much more severe than the first. They have increased by a factor of 5 to 10 times. Places which got through the first wave without severe damage are hit hard in December. This includes Germany, and California. In California daily cases exceed 50,000 and in Germany 30,000. In California, France, Germany, and UK, Spain, the daily cases far exceed earlier cases in the first wave by a factor of 5 to 10 times. For this reason India needs to be wary of a resurgence in the pandemic in a second wave. With its large population, need for economic recovery, and opportunity to benefit from the vaccine developments and its strict protocols for testing, isolation and social distancing, mask wearing, India can carefully and vigilantly prepare for the second wave. ...

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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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Daily coronavirus cases dropped to the lowest level since March 30, 2021. Cases on June 19 were at 58,000 and deaths at 1154 for India's population of 1.2 billion people. The only state with cases over 10,000 was Kerala, and close to 9000 was Tamilnadu. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were at over 5000. All these states are in southern India. Only Maharashtra with about 9000 cases was in northern India. The positivity rate in Maharashtra state was 3% and in Mumbai 2%.  The Indian government has a clear vaccine policy and it is for vaccine supplies and vaccination drive to be under the federal government. This puts responsibility in one place and makes it possible to achieve the target of vaccinating 1.2 billion people by December 31, 2021, with the federal government putting all the resources it can muster into the effort. The economy is also linked to how the vaccination supply effort and vaccination drive progresses in the next 6 months, so that the goal of vaccination is closely linked to economic recovery and progress for India as a whole. A good monsoon rainy season would also help the rural economy recovery. ...

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How a small Kansas town of Grinnell in America finds a way to deal with the rural-urban divide and covid anxiety generated in the tumultuous years of 2020-2021, is the subject with pictures of this report in the WSJ. Grinnell is heartland America and its residents find a way to set Kansas and America in the right direction. One one side some resident worried they would end up like Minneapolis or Portland with protesters. An incident of drivers along Highway 70 emptying shelves of toilet paper in neighborhood stores is seen negatively by some  Grinnell residents and leads to forming an Emergency Preparedness Group to prevent outside agitators from creating problems. Others like the Enlightened Ladies Group try to calm things down. Gene Tilton, 84, and his son 63 years, whose family arrived in Kansas in 1880's did'nt see the need for forming some sort of vigilante group. He raises cattle and crops on a 10,000 acre farm. Michael Machen who practiced medicine in Gove County for 35 years also felt the same way and believed law enforcement could tackle the problem if there was one. Sheriff Mesch attended the Gove County emergency Preparedness Group public meeting by invitation in January 2021. This about the time when the Capitol in Washington DC was stormed by protesters and the country was divided after the election. At that time after 19 months of coronavirus deaths, racial unrest and political violence America was on edge, communities all over America were struggling with the idea that the immediate threat they faced was from other Americans not foreign adversaries. The sheriff told everyone at the Emergency Preparedness Group's public meeting where he stood- law enforcement could handle any threat and he didn't anticpate anything his deputies could not handle. He told the Emergency Preparedness Group that he appreciated their sentiment though, if he needed help he would ask, yet concluded that is the only way. From that rebuff by the sheriff the Group paused its activity and shifted its message to offering to help anyone deal with the deep cold spell in February, to cope with snow, tornadoes, fires, rattlesnake bites and similar hazards. They sponsored first aid classes, and a "Homesteader Gardening Class." Soon their idea was "we're here to help people, the last thing we want is for people to be uncomfortable." "Gove County" says Don Tilton, "has moved on." So must America today. ...

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Germany faces serious problems in its vaccination drive and efforts to control the pandemic in November 2021. The rate at which people are getting vaccinated has slowed to 150,000 a day and the percentage of the population that is vaccinated is stuck at 67%. This percentage of 67% fully vaccinated in Germany as of November 3 is much lower than that in Spain, France and Italy.  Spain is at 78%, France at 69% and Italy at 72%. (Data from NYT) This report in the Guardian points out that most of the remaining one third of the population is not eager to get vaccinated as surveys show that the those who have refused to get a jab are unlikely to change their minds.There is also the problem of booster shots. Germany's 16 regions conduct the vaccination drives and with many of the vaccination centers not active since September staff has to be retrained or rehired. This makes it harder to give booster shots to everyone that was vaccinated early by the start of winter. Why is it that Germany lags behind Spain in vaccination? There is a great deal of trust in Spain and Portugal in the health service and people are 100% behind their health system. The other countries that have a low rate of fully vaccinated are the US at 58%, Brazil 57%, Russia at 33%. Even the UK with its well respected National Health Service remains at 68% fully vaccinated. Today the US, Russia, Brazil, European Union countries and India have many of the 5 million deaths from coronavirus. India's vaccination drive is approaching 1100 million vaccinated, yet there is along way to go in getting most of the population fully vaccinated because of the large population of 1.3 billion. This is why the Indian prime minister on the first day of returning from the COP26 climate summit devoted his time to meeting with leaders of different states and heads of districts with low vaccination rates to press home the idea that the effort had to be taken up vigorously in the coming months. ...

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Queen Elizabeth's words on April 5, 2020 during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic will always be remembered, when she said reminding one of of her words in 1940- "We will meet again." "I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humored resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterize this country. The pride in who we are is not of our past, it defines our present and our future." "And though self-isolating may at times be hard, many people of all faiths, and of none, are discovering that it presents and opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, in prayer or meditation. "It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made in 1940, helped by my sister. We, as children, spoke from here at Windsor, to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety. Today once again, many people will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones. But now, as then, we know deep down, that it is the right thing to do. While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed- and that success will belong to every one of us. "We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return, we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again."   ...

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President Trump extends the U.S. lockdown for social distancing till April 30, on the advice of health experts. China meanwhile resumes industrial production and schools reopen. Factories, offices and retail outlets were shutdown for 2 months nearly nationwide in China. The U.S. has a social distancing lockdown not a complete quarantine of hotspots such as New York, New Jersey. Mr. Trump planned to quarantine New York but faced opposition from the governors of New York and New Jersey, including possible legal challenges. U.S. governors have acted imposing travel restrictions to their states from hotspots in other places in the country, forcing people traveling to self-isolate, stopping vehicles with out of state license plates and asking them to stay away. The U.S. cases have jumped from 100 in early March to 143,000 as of March 28, 2020, and 2514 deaths, according to John Hopkins. New estimates from president Trump and his team of experts are for the peak to be reached by April 15, and recovery gradually taking place by June 1, 2020. Based on the timeline in China shown below the time from the first set of 27 cases by December 15 to March 28 when China's factories were back to work and schools reopened across the country, is a period of 75 days. Based on this president Trump's timeline of June 1 for recovery has some foundation. China quarantined strictly compared to the U.S. yet in the early days it had no warning which the U.S. had in particular from Italy. The Trump administration by extending social distancing and lockdown restrictions till April 30 without a strict quarantine of the East coast areas yet with states outside imposing their own restrictions for outsiders, is doing what other countries such as China, South Korea, have to control this epidemic. The first coronavirus case was reported on November 17, 2019 according to the South China Morning Post, By December 15, the number of cases had reached 15. On December 27 on a single day 180 cases were recorded and the Head of the Respiratory Department at Hubei Provincial Hospital reported this to health authorites in China, according to the South China Morning Post, based on data collected in China.   ...

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A 35 year old Engineering professor from Texas who studies how transportation systems propagate infectious diseases and her 2 graduate students from China started and since January maintain the database of coronavirus confirmed cases and deaths. This is one of the widely used databases, also used by public health officials in the U.S. The database was started with a hunch from one of Lauren Gardner's students from China Ensheng Dong who comes from Shanxi province, north of Wuhan. A geography and mapping specialist he had studied in the U.S. since 2012, and spent many hours inputting data by hand following his classes. This WSJ report says the website was built in 1 day and was launched on January 22, when the coronavirus cases were practically nonexistent in the rest of the world and were concentrated in the Wuhan area. This report says behind the data reported in the media everyday is a complicated supply chain filled with challenges that come with data, what is reported, underreported and with what assumptions it is reported. Dr. Gardner says she is dealing with so much data on her dashboard, 4000 points of data, that its hard enough to pull all the data scraped together from different sources, its impossible for her to check the assumptions behind the data for consistency and trying to figure out facts underlying the data.  One of the ways the virus developed in the rest of the world is the surprise with which it caught western countries and then the rest of the world. As a result something that the government authorites would do such as the Centres of Disease Control is being done in a totally ad hoc manner. The U.S. government uses the University of Washington Health Metrics database, and in turn the University of Washington Health Metrics database takes some of the data from the John Hopkins database. Because a complacent population in the western countries were relying on numbers counted as cases to know how serious this epidemic was or whether there was an epidemic, the significance of data count from China assumed a signifcance far out of proportion to what it might normally be. This was because the western countries in Europe and America never encountered an epidemic of this kind in living memory, the last one forgotten from 1917 hundred years ago. Researchers in Gottingen University study in Germany conducted analysis of data in studies of cases published in Lancet Journal and found that only 6% of cases were being shown- that a much larger part of the population was infected. A researcher at Princeton University Ramanan Laxminarayan says countries tend to delay reporting until a problem becomes certain, because telling others comes with economic costs such as a rapid drop in trade and travel. Yet he says early warning systems are key to prevention. Early warning from the different publicly available data bases was not possible for many reasons. Relying on such ad hoc data was hazardous considering that as the NYT reported recently when there was the first confirmed detected case reported in New York there were already 10,000 persons estimated to be undetected. James Glanz and Benedict Carey, say in the NYT.com on May 7, that hidden outbreaks spread through U.S. cities far earlier than Americans knew, estimates show, which makes the publicly available databases giving a false sense of security, and not acting as an early warning because of the inadequacy of the resources for this task for individual researchers to handle. Not depending on  hurriedly put together databases with inadequate resources and having an independent sense of what the danger was as German chancellor Merkel described it in her first coronavirus address in March, was a better early warning signal than the databases in retrospect. And this too had come late. The reason is that the response had to be fast, very fast, and public perceptions had to be shaped quickly about the magnitude and speed of enormous proportions of the coronavirus, so that actions could be shaped quickly and executed quickly to stop it in its tracks.    ...

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The full text of the letter is given here. In this letter the U.S. sets out some important facts about events that happened during the coronavirus crisis during the crucial 4 month period from December 2019 to March 2020. Every week lost in this time due to reasons of a lack of transparency, openness meant hundreds of thousands of people more infected and tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. There are questions of transparency, of openness and this raises questions about the manner in which the World Health Assembly operates with hundreds of small countries in Africa and Asia having votes equal to that of the U.S., India, Brazil, Mexico with votes taken of over 200 countries. The entire election process can now be seen as questionable, when over a billion people in one country alone such as India or hundreds of millions in Brazil and Mexico would have to bear the consequences of poor decisions made by small countries that can be swayed in one direction or another based on political bias and other considerations that have nothing to do with global health.  At the conclusion of the letter by the U.S. to the current WHO shaped by a controversial election in 2017 the following is stated about the standards set by Gro Harlem Brundtland and which helped the world prevent the SARS crisis which originated in China in 2003 from spreading to the large countries of the world India, Brazil, Mexico, and other such countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. European Union. "In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example." Even this does not come to grips with the flawed way in which the election of WHO head is done. It can no longer be relied on when there is the danger that lack of transparency can emerge in the WHO leadership itself because of a flawed process. It risks endangering the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions in countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, as well as in the relatively small countries of Africa and Latin America where even basic water supplies are at risk but which could tilt elections at the World Health Assembly. Consider that a cyclone just hit the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh on May 20 just as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading. That this region of 1.5 billion people had just 2 votes out of over 200 cast at the World Health Assembly in 2017 shocking. And even these votes cast based on old geopolitical considerations not how good the candidate is, and how good the country he is coming from is in terms of its record  on public health. The irony here is that private foundations in the advanced countries in the U.S. and Europe some of whom are major donors to WHO did not think that more experienced candidates in their own countries with a better record of public health such as in France or Germany are better qualified, in a flawed NGO support mentality left from the Clinton years. Basically the people in these large countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico were disenfranchised, when the austerity policies were consuming the European Union, and the U.S. had just elected a new administration itself groping for ways to reverse years of neglect of public services and infrastructure priorities. They would trust good leaders no matter where they come from, who have a record of transparency, leadership, and all the values we cherish together no matter where we come from. ...

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Typical of so much of what is written about the World Health Organization and its role in the pandemic, this podcast in the WSJ fails to quickly convey the critical function of the WHO as an early warning system the world has depended on, including China. The H1N1 epidemic originated in Mexico. Asian countries including China and India depended on very quick response from the country where the epidemic originated  in allowing entry into the affected area for experts from advanced countries such as the U.S. The global response was then coordinated across countries quickly with complete transparency. The head of China's CDC himself faced a problem with transparency with the provincial authorites in Wuhan. 1.    Fundamentally this quick entry was denied the U.S. Request by U.S. to China was made on Jan. 6 for U.S. team to go to Wuhan, quick permission was denied and given only about 6 weeks later on Feb 16. This delay is the crux of the problem for the U.S.. Taiwan confirmed human to human transmission on Jan. 1, the WHO was saying this was not clear as late as Jan. 14. These costly delays are what the U.S.  letter is about.  The head of the CDC China Gao Fu called Dr. Redfield head of CDC in the U.S. on the next day after he suspected Wuhan provincial authorites were vague about what was happening. Gao Fu was alarmed when scanning the internet on December 30, 2019, about rumors of a vaguely worded lung disease in internal memos of Wuhan. He called Wuhan authorites and was not getting clear answers on that day, then deciding on December 31 to send his own team to Wuhan, as reported in German magazine Der Spiegel- Hackenbroch, Zand, 05/20/2020.  Der Spiegel says in its special report on the early period in Wuhan that Gao Fu was so alarmed about what was happening enough to be in tears in his series of calls with Dr. Redfield in the immediate days that followed. The date was shortly after the GAO Fu sent the team to Wuhan, December 31 and New Years Day 2020, as reported in Der Spiegel. See the link to Lyrarc gist of Der Spiegel's "A Failed Deception: The Early Days of the Coronavirus in Wuhan."  2.  President Trump points out the standards of the WHO- in the concluding point of his letter to WHO- when a three time prime minister of Norway, Gro Brundtland was head of the WHO during the SARS crisis of 2003. She acted quickly and decisively and no time was lost. It is this failure of the early warning system under the new president of the WHO after 2017 Dr. Tedros that alarms the U.S.  with about 100,000 deaths.  3.  This failure it can now be said was partly a result of a election in 2017 for the position of WHO president which was flawed. This was the first time a WHO head, an important position was put up for an election. The Executive Board was responsible for this appointment since the founding of the WHO as part of the UN, based in Geneva, Switzerland, after World War II. This system worked. The election was clearly a bad process for appointing the president of the WHO which should be done entirely on the capabilities of the person holding this position not on a flawed voting process. It is flawed because India and Bangladesh hit by a cyclone during the coronavirus have suffered greatly, as have other countries, but had only 2 votes for 1.5 billion people, when Barbados (385,000 population) and Laos (7 million) which had less than one  hundredth the population had the same number of votes. The U.S. had one vote. The election resulted in lobbying and a process in which many candidates stayed away because they simply would not go through such a process. The position was too important to the world- most of the advanced countries had forgotten about the danger of epidemics to let this happen by 2017, as shown in the way the austerity years led to cancellation of the preparations for pandemic in France and Britain. The austerity years and neglect of public health during these tech boom years in the western world made it possible for this to happen. 3.   Along with the 1 month ultimatum action is already being taken to restore the effectiveness of the importance of the Executive Board. The head of the health ministry in India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, has been appointed the new chairman of the Executive Board on May 22. This restores the voice of billions of people in Asia in the process, and brings the major countries with the greatest risk in a pandemic into the decision process for tackling the pandemic, this includes the rest of the world.     ...

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Sweden's king Gustaf says the coronavirus policy of voluntary action has failed. Sweden now has 350,000 cases and deaths at 7800. This is more than all other Nordic countries combined and one of the highest rates per 100,000 of the population. Most are elderly who never had time to say goodbye. The makes Sweden a target of worldwide criticism for neglecting older people who never got a chance to say goodbye and died in chaotic conditions. It puts into spotlight the values of Swedish society of self centredness. Sweden, Netherlands and some Northern European countries also opposed the large stimulus planned by Merkel and Macron for the EU. showing lack of sensitivity for the plight of poorer countries in Europe such as Greece Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe that were already hit by the eurozone financial crisis. The king said 2020 "was a terrible year" for Sweden. Now that the second wave has hit Germany hard, Sweden has acted to close schools, limit gatherings for Christmas and is following the restrictions practiced in the rest of Europe. To get some sense of how hard the second wave is hitting countries Germany recorded  952 deaths a day December 16, close to one third of that in the U.S. on Dec 15. ...

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The coronavirus pandemic and the disaster in nursing homes, the chaotic conditions in the first wave, the lack of staff and poor attention to residents during the pandemic, has exposed the major weakness of nursing home care in western countries. Much of this sector is in the hands of private operators seeking a profit.  The staff is paid low wages and lacks the experience and empathy needed for care of older people. During a virus all these factors turn deadly. With some staff sick the other staff is overburdened. If the sick turn up for work they are likely to risk the safety of other staff and the residents. With the incubation period lack of testing there is no way to know. When deaths occur and the nursing homes are sealed from the outside world the deaths happen with no goodbyes as happened in U.S., Britain and Sweden. This has exposed the scandalous and shocking way in which the elderly are treated in today's environment where ridiculous amounts of money are being spent on other things and the the most basic "one's parents" are neglected and allowed to die in horrific manner in a pandemic. The new trend for home care for the elderly is a welcome trend and long overdue as one of the worst aspects of the system in the west is the treatment of elderly parents in nursing homes run for profit. The new technology tools available for monitoring a elderly person at home, and the help of stores such as Best Buy which are serving elderly at home, is making this more and more a choice for the elderly. Even older patients and ones needing significant care can recover and spend time at home in a better environment, a less costly one, as hospital managers and families have learned in 2020. Some hospitals in the U.S. say they never want to go back. That the drive to get every patient home who can be home is the right one for patients and families and for the government paying for the care so that dollars are well spent in quality of care. Home health care companies are working on providing new services for sicker patients recovering at home. Technology helps do better monitoring. Medicare now pays for digital doctor visits and intense hospital type care at home after coronavirus showed this as vitally needed.  Both the Biden and Trump administrations are firmly focused on this issue. Seema Verma as head of Medicare is clear about the need for a national conversation on how we take care of the elderly, of our parents. And Mr. Biden wants to spend $450 billon to make certain that people who need long term care can get the support they need in the home and the community. This report looks at the home health care companies and how they are improving their services. This and telemedicine are two of the major constructive changes coming out of the pandemic, clearing out some of the worst aspects of the old system of living the older years in the western world.  Nothing speaks more about humanity and a human world than the story here of Savanna Hollar, 90 years old and almost blind. She broke her shoulder in August, Her sons decided not to send her to a the rehab facility she went to after a broken hip 3 years earlier. The sons brought her home to recover in the farmhouse near Yadkinville, N.C., where she has lived since 1951. One of her sons himself 63 years says that at a nursing home she would be lonely, scared and afraid to move. The sons hired two people to help her during the day and a rotating system was used for having people help her. At home Mrs. Hollar could enjoy her gray cat, Buddy, her favorite recliner and tomato sandwiches made with produce from her garden. Really, if we can't do this much what good is the U.S.A.? or Britain? or Sweden? or India? ...