Learn to read and look for these bar codes. Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader. Buy American even if a bit more cost.
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690-692 … Then it is MADE IN CHINA
00 - 09 ... USA & CANADA
30 - 37 FRANCE
40 - 44 GERMANY471 ... Taiwan
49 ... JAPAN50 .. UK
It is a Russian chicken and egg story.
By: George Friedman
Karl Marx wrote that “history repeats itself twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.” The collapse of the Soviet Union was not a tragedy, nor is what is happening in Russia now a farce. Still, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a defining moment in human history. Russia’s current struggle with itself doesn’t begin to rise to that level.
At issue is the collapse of oil prices. Before the long decline in energy prices, oil and natural gas accounted for about 60 percent of Russia’s exports and 30 percent of its gross domestic product. At the time, Russia was a Third World country trying to sustain a First World military. I call Russia Third World because for Vladimir Lenin, the countries that survived by selling raw materials to more advanced countries were the prisoners of imperialism, and later came to be called Third World. To Lenin, the fact that Russia generated a third of its GDP, as well as the majority of its national budget, from energy sales to industrialized countries makes it a classic Third World country.
The problem of these countries, according to Lenin, was that their survival depended on prices they could not control. Since the price of commodities is inherently volatile, determined as it is by the robustness of industrial powers, the exporter can neither control the price nor have an opportunity to generate investment capital on a systematic basis.
Whereas Marx gave little thought to Russia, which he considered hopelessly backward, Lenin obsessed over it.
The entire point of Stalinism was to industrialize Russia through the ruthless confiscation of raw materials in order to raise capital for industrialization.
More than 100 years ago, Lenin staged the Bolshevik Revolution to move Russia beyond dependence on raw material sales.
About 90 years ago, Stalin savaged Russian society in order to fulfill Lenin’s dream. Both failed to build a modern Russia.
A country that depends so heavily on any one commodity will always be vulnerable to imperial powers. There was a time when Russia could use energy sales — or energy embargoes, as the case may be — to make Europe tremble. But now the world is awash in energy, and despite Russia’s recent efforts to reach an entente with the Saudis — the epitome of the Third World energy exporter — it has failed to maintain prices.
The Russians have floated conspiracy theories of U.S. and Saudi collaboration designed to cripple the Russian economy with low energy prices and few markets, but that assumes that any conspiracy would need to lower prices. The supply of energy has surged, largely because of the American energy sector, and demand did not keep up.
The price of oil has moved downward over recent years, but now the price has collapsed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The contraction of the global economy inevitably decreased the need for energy. Attempts by OPEC, an organization as relevant to today’s realities as the League of Nations, to raise prices have failed. In the 1970s, demand surged and OPEC could manage the supply. Some among us will recall the Arab oil embargo. It defined the 1970s and was the opportunity for countries like the Soviet Union and Iran to create modern economies. The oil producers assumed that their power, and therefore income, would be permanent. High prices generated a search for new sources of oil and gas, as well as new efficiencies in energy use, and the price fell dramatically in the 1980s.
Now, the Soviet Union fell for many reasons — inefficiency and corruption had been mainstays of the system for decades — but things changed in the 1980s. For one, defense budgets soared as Moscow tried to keep pace with American development, particularly the legendary Star Wars project, as much legend as a project. For another, the price of energy fell, and the Russians were heavily dependent on energy sales. Russia was caught in a vise between defense spending and falling energy prices, which ultimately undermined the basis of the Soviet Union.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia faced the old challenge of building a modern economy rather than a Potemkin village of modernity.
The first decade after the fall was chaotic as investment bankers and oligarchs appropriated the wealth under the banner of privatization.
The emergence of Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent who as head of St. Petersburg was tied into the oligarchy, should have led to a surge of modernization. Energy prices were reasonably high, and investment capital for a modern economy could, in theory, have been created. But the problem of Brezhnev and Yeltsin was not solved. Investment capital was diverted for investment and safety outside of Russia, and Putin, who depended on the oligarchs for his power, could not do what he knew had to be done. Over time, his power surged and investment was possible, but as the process began to accelerate, the price of energy declined and with it the foundation for investment. In the past few days, it has totally evaporated.
Russia’s problem now is not building a new generation of hypersonic missiles, nor investment in advanced technologies. Its problem is to avoid collapse. The Russian budget is distributed among its constituent regions, which pay the teachers and doctors and firemen. But with the decline of energy prices, Russia’s budget declines, and as it declines, the regions contract. Russia, a Third World country, has few counters to low energy prices.
Putin is a powerful leader — certainly more powerful than Gorbachev and Yeltsin ever were. But his options are two: the Stalinist one, which grips the country by the throat, or something else. The something else is essential, but urgency itself is not a solution. The Russians may muddle through. That was Brezhnev’s strategy, but the blow to Russia of energy prices is significant. The idea of building Nord Stream 2, for example, to bring natural gas from Russia to Germany is an idea from ancient history. Between the virus and energy prices, it is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
During my sordid youth I worked in places that worried about Russian power. The ability of the U.S. military to exaggerate the power of Russia is in hindsight amazing. Back then, the Soviet Union was a cripple masquerading as a great power. I see that process repeating itself, both with Russia and with China (another story).
It is always forgotten that the idea of the Potemkin village came from deep in the Russian soul. A czar was to tour a region, and to hide the poverty of the region from him, villages facing the railroad track were built — but only the fronts of the houses were put up. The facades gave the czar the illusion of Russian prosperity, behind which resided a far grimmer reality.
The Russian people endure, and I am always told by Russians that the ability to endure means that Russia cannot be judged by foreign standards. It is true that the Russians endure and only rarely rise. But when they rise, as they did in 1917 or against the Germans in World War II and ultimately in 1991, they can dissolve things that seem immutable.
The Russians say that they know how to survive a long hard winter. But at a certain point they snap, and with the value of oil a fraction of what Russia needs it to be to make do, let alone prosper, it is hard to see how the Russians will endure this winter of disease and poverty.
I think Marx got it wrong. The farce came first. The tragedy may come second.
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One more rant from Ross:
The drop in oil prices is a real shock to the geopolitics of several countries. Russia is in serious trouble now. Oil is by far the majority of its budget. It was in decline before, but now it is real potential disaster for them, even as moved higher again. Their base cost is $54, so they are losing vast sums as the price drops to levels nobody had any idea were possible. Russia has a rainy day fund of $115 billion built up over several years, but it is not clear how long that lasts to sustain them. Putin and the Prince wanted to play chicken and they now are both dead roosters. The Saudis are no longer able to sustain this calamity. The price is not going to rush back up to $50 anytime soon. The world economy will take a long time to restart and achieve high use of oil. In addition, there is enough oil in storage now to go for many months even if economies could restart tomorrow. Putin has total power and can just kill anyone who complains too much, but he now has to make a real decision to fund his military and Syria or Venezuela, or his people. He cannot do both. Add on the virus now raging in Russia, and its lousy health system, and he has real problems. Not only is the standard of living dropping due to oil, but the virus has highlighted the disconnect of Putin and his cronies in Moscow from the people who know how corrupt Putin and his friends are. We heard a lot about that from Russians when I was in St Petersburg. Putin will have problems with his people now. On the other hand, the US has enough reserves and enough wells that can be restarted, to not worry about ever getting squeezed again by anyone. The issue for the US is the oil business employs a lot of people at high wages, and now has high unemployment. A substantial number of the small producers will get taken over, but the production capacity does not disappear. It will likely be sometime in 2021 before there is real stabilization for the oil business. That will hurt GDP. A bunch of hedge funds were probably the real losers because they thought they could close out their forward positions, and then could not. It will be a while before we see the real carnage for oil companies and hedge funds, but it is coming. Whatever the government does to help the oil industry is not going to replace the losses the hedgies incurred. The winners are tanker owners who are charging $34 per barrel for storage aboard.
The investment grade bond market is very active and functioning normally now. Below investment grade BBB, is still a major loss. The head of FHFA has relented, and now servicers on residential agency paper only have to cover debt service 120 days, and not forever. This will allow many smaller servicers to remain in business for now. The forbearances are piling up. The borrowers still owe the mortgage payments, and so when they sell they pay. That will be interesting as the accrued amount due may eat a big part of their equity in the house, making it hard for them to by the move up house. These forbearances will potentially have long term ramifications- none of which are good. Apparently non-payment now does not hurt your credit score on a forbearance. Good way to encourage people to take responsibility for paying their debts on time! It appears that most renters paid their rent in April, despite many Dem governors and mayors telling them not to. We will see what May brings which may be worse as the blue state politicians continue to tell people not to pay rent or mortgages. How irresponsible can they get. CA of course, is now prohibiting evictions. Really dumb. Office rents were 95% paid in April. Hard to predict May. Shared office like WeWork did not pay. Retail- 20% did not pay rent. Big malls suffered more than strip centers. If a lot of smaller retailers were able to get PPP loans, so then there is a good chance rent defaults in strips will be minimized. It is the big tenants like Macy and Neiman who are the problem. They are not paying. 50% of retail real estate owners have asked for forbearance. 70% of hotels has asked for forbearance. Multi is still doing OK as Fannie and Freddie are issuing loans to good sponsors. Hotels are still the bottom of the heap. There is so much capital now ready to pounce that the trade may get crowded, and the deals may not be as good as hoped due to too much money chasing decent properties.
Pelosi and Schumer will tell us they made it all much better by adding things, but reality is they destroyed a bunch of small companies and their employees by delaying the funding for a week the first round, and now over two weeks total with this second round. Three lost weeks for small companies who are desperate so Nancy could play stupid games. They easily could have approved the $251 billion two weeks ago, and then had another bill immediately after for hospitals and whoever. There was still tens of billions unspent from the first bill allocated for hospitals, so there was zero chance of any delay funding a hospital. There is a big hospital workers union that contributes to the DNC and plaintiff lawyers ready to pounce. If you have a Dem representative you should call them and rage at them. This is outrageous. Pelosi can’t even act properly when there is an extreme emergency. Schumer seems to just be her little puppet.
A real problem is developing in restaurants. Workers in back who wash dishes are paid more to be unemployed than to work, so either the restaurants will need to pay more or when the $600 extra runs out in four months these people may find they were replaced.
The next battle is over funding for states and cities. You may notice the PR wave has already begun. These jurisdictions don’t need money-they need fiscal discipline and mainly a reset of pensions for their employees and the teachers. They need to stop paying for illegal aliens and other entitlement programs that they simply cannot afford. All of the major cities have all sorts of wasteful programs that can be eliminated. Pelosi will be pushing hard to fund these cities so her union supporters do not have to make any sacrifice, and the local government does not have to make budget cuts and higher taxes. We have a real chance to get these local budgets back into some level of affordability, but it is not likely to happen. You will hear a lot about laying off cops and firemen instead of talk about redoing budgets to eliminate many of the liberal expenditures. None of the Dems will talk about how the ridiculous pension and healthcare costs are eating the local budgets before the virus and need to be redone. That is why McConnell wants them to go BK. Here are a few examples of how the Dems waste money. Cuomo launched a marketing program to get new jobs to go to upstate. A person high up who is fully knowledgeable said it cost $350,000 per job created. DeBozo let his wife initiate a homeless program. $2 billion later they cannot account for where any of the money went, and the homeless problem got much worse before the virus. And Pelosi wants you to give them a lot more of your tax money, and the press makes it sound like the cops and firemen are getting laid off first, and it is all Trump’s fault along with McConnell. CA gives money and all sorts of payments to illegals, and you are supposed to pay for that. Revise the outrageous pension and healthcare union contracts, and the problem gets solved. McConnell has already said no more. Hopefully he can hold the line.
In NJ there is no hope at all, and if you own a home in NJ, either take a big loss, or own it for many more years. It is now like Greenwich after the crash. Nobody wants to even look. One person got 11,000 hits on his $1 mill house on Zillow. Nobody followed up. He bought another house thinking he could sell the old one easily. Now he owns two houses. And the governor demands the rest of us give them more money.
While I understand testing, and all of the caution to reopen, I go back to my probabilities numbers of prior Rants. The chance of infection for young (under 65) healthy people, is less than nil to get a case that will kill you, and that cannot be treated successfully. While it is apparently true that 30% of deaths were under 60, we have no numbers to see how many were otherwise health compromised, but the comments by Dr Brix suggests it was most. You have to look past just raw numbers to know what is the real probability. I have no numbers on the health conditions of younger people who died, but I bet it is most had a pre-existing condition. Explain to me how my local Publix is open every day, and fairly crowded, as is CVS, and the hardware store, and kitchens in restaurants with staff preparing take-out food, plus the tennis club, with no special things to protect anyone. Few at Publix wear masks, and people pass each other in the aisles. The cashiers do not have masks. The average age on Longboat is 70. There has not been one case since April 1 on Longboat. The few cases on Longboat, as best we know, mainly came from a party in early March where there was an infected guy from Europe attending. So if we can operate safely here with a lot of older people, why not elsewhere with younger and more healthy people, so long as everyone abides by 6 foot spacing and hand washing. Maybe on Longboat we have a magic cloud protecting us, or maybe the risk is really very low for the general population, other than in places like NYC and Detroit where there are a lot of unhealthy people packed in the subway. See the item attached at the bottom from the Hoover Institute.
On the Roosevelt, they tested the entire 4600 crew. Only 710 tested positive, only 52 needed treatment, and only one died. 42 recovered and 9 are finishing recovering. So out of 4600 tightly packed in birthing compartments, and eating and working tightly together 24/7, only 1.13% needed treatment of any kind, and only 1 out of 4600 died. My probabilities again. 1 dead out of 4600, and if they had followed stay home rules, we would have had a critical part of our defense against China taken out of service for a month. So maybe we can go back to work if we all adhere to distancing and washing hands and cleaning surfaces, so long as people over 65 and those with compromised health conditions are kept away for now, or are segregated somehow in the work space. With proven therapies, maybe those 51 sailors would have recovered even faster. They keep saying testing, testing, but as Fauci said, unless you test 100% every single day, it is almost meaningless since it can show negative today and positive tomorrow. Georgia will be the real test case. If you segregate NYC and nearby counties, it is the most deaths per million in the world. In fact NYC, excluding China where we have no idea what the real numbers are, is about the worst area of the world. So if you deduct the NYC numbers, the rest of most of the US is as I have said, not a major crisis other than in a couple of places like Detroit, New Orleans, and Chicago, all areas with high density of poor people who have other health issues.
Just for perspective, a reader pointed out that in 1968-9 the Hong Kong flu killed 100,000 Americans out of only 200 million population. Nothing in the economy was shut down. In 2018, 67,000 died from opioids, and 37,000 die each year in car accidents. So far 41,000 out of 330 million have died from the virus, and it may not go a lot higher. If we had proven therapies in place in February, and had shut off nursing homes from all outside access, maybe the death toll would have been 10,000, or who knows what. Then maybe the suicide hotlines would not be overwhelmed right now, and maybe the economy would not be tanking, and maybe we would not have run up $7 trillion of added debt including the Fed funding piece. The price we will pay one day for the total shut down is huge, but maybe if we had not done that, there would have been 1 million dead. We will never really know.
It is unclear what if any major department stores survive this. Sears is gone, JC Penny is about to be gone, Barneys is gone, Niemen is BK and might disappear, as several others are about to be. Macy is closing stores so fast it will be a mere shell of itself, and mainly a real estate company eventually. None of them know what to do about Christmas which they need to order for now. None has cash to place orders. Some are already in default on debt and rent. So, there go the malls which have these stores as anchors. The entire mall business will be transformed, but unclear into what. You can’t put self-storage in the middle of a high end mall, nor a gym, or some other clever things. One real possibility is an Amazon distribution center for local pick up, or maybe a Wal Mart store and distribution center. The department store was once the draw. The entire retail landscape is about to undergo the biggest change and upheaval in history. This is happening just as online shopping got a giant boost from shelter in place. It had been around 15% of retail sales, but now is heading much higher. I would not want to own a mall, or a mall REIT, right now, nor the bonds of the operators, nor the RIETs owning malls. There is huge risk and almost guaranteed losses. Consider also that often the land around a mall was valuable because the mall was a draw. No longer. You may see apartments spring up in parking lots, or maybe a Wal Mart or Costco. Retail is just beginning a massive wash out and change. Best not to be invested in that segment for now unless it is Wal Mart, Costco, Home Depot, Loews, and some focused brands like a Warby Parker, or Amazon, as the outcome is totally unknowable. The bond market is going to see a lot of big losses with this. PE funds that bought control of some of the big retailers and levered them up, are going to get their investment wiped.
The bartender from the Bronx outdid her ignorance this week when she said negative oil prices were a wonderful thing. She followed that by demanding that low income workers not go back to work so they can demand changes to their hours and wages. What a great idea. The lowest income people going on a protest so they can get fired and lose whatever income they had. Her local constituents are starting to realize she is a self-promoting moron who lied to them about the Amazon project which would have provided good jobs for them. And the press periodically comments that in ten years she could run for president. Maybe the reporters really are as dumb as her. And they think she can unseat Schumer. If that happened we are all in massive trouble. To me It is inconceivable that she can beat him. All he needs to do is roll out a string of her more stupid comments like these.
We can expect lawsuits testing to see if this is force majeure giving owners the right to fire hotel or property managers, or to get out of brand franchise agreements. It will be interesting to see what fees and other charges the brands are willing to waive to help franchisees. For hotels this is far more devastating than the financial crash. I expect C corp brands to take a big revenue hit for several years. In some countries hotels may not recover for 5 years or more. Nobody knows. There are going to be some courts in some countries that will side with owners regardless of what a brand contract says. This crisis is a lawyers dream come true. Problem is their clients may not have money to pay them.
The news all over the mainstream media that a new study showed Hydroxychloroquine kills more than cures, is a misstatement, as it was not a trial. The French virologist who has done the most work on this drug use for Covid said that report was scientific malpractice. The drug was administered too late in patients who had passed the point of no return. Other issues arose that made the findings invalid according to the head of the VA, which is where the study was done. It was merely a review of files on 330 cases with no full basis for any conclusion. It proved nothing more than, we need the trials to be completed to know the real answer as to effectiveness Once more a headline peddled by the mass media without facts or relevant information in order to try to make Trump look bad. In fact the French scientist, who has nothing to do with Trump, said the report had clear biases and inaccuracies, yet the media pushed it out there in big headlines. Can’t these press people realize they have a responsibility to report the truth, and all research a story before it is published to mislead people. The report is false.
I found it a disgrace that Harvard, Stanford, U of P and other top schools with huge endowments got those loans. Such hypocrites. Trump was right to demand it all be returned. They are not in need of cash. The president of U of P is paid $3 million salary plus a house plus expenses. And yet she happily took cash for the school which should have gone to struggling entrepreneurs.
I know I am getting old, but do I imagine that many of the White House reporters look like they are in their twenties. And they ask such stupid questions. How did they get these jobs. What happened to the grown-ups and professional journalists.
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The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.
Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.
Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.
In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000.
Of all fatal cases in New York state, two-thirds were in patients over 70 years of age; more than 95 percent were over 50 years of age; and about 90 percent of all fatal cases had an underlying illness. Of 6,570 confirmed COVID-19 deaths fully investigated for underlying conditions to date, 6,520, or 99.2 percent, had an underlying illness. If you do not already have an underlying chronic condition, your chances of dying are small, regardless of age. And young adults and children in normal health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19.
Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600 hospitalizations to date. For those under 18 years of age, hospitalization from the virus is 0.01 percent per 100,000 people; for those 18 to 44 years old, hospitalization is 0.1 percent per 100,000. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization." Even early WHO reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing positive for infection have no symptoms at all. The vast majority of younger, otherwise healthy people do not need significant medical care if they catch this infection.
Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.
We know from decades of medical science that infection itself allows people to generate an immune response – antibodies – so that the infection is controlled throughout the population by “herd immunity.” Indeed, that is the main purpose of widespread immunization in other viral diseases — to assist with population immunity. In this virus, we know that medical care is not even necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic, shown in early data from the Diamond Princess ship, and then in Iceland and Italy. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.
Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.
Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped “non-essential” procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed. Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability.
Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.
The overwhelming evidence all over the world consistently shows that a clearly defined group – older people and others with underlying conditions – is more likely to have a serious illness requiring hospitalization, and more likely to die from COVID-19. Knowing that, it is a common sense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected people, given that they already live in confined places with highly restricted entry.
The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation. Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.
Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.
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A sample of how the world, most particularly Europe, is reacting:
Slowly, Slowly
As some Americans prepare to emerge from lockdown next month, Europe is providing some insights into what that might look like.
The first takeaway is that no one approach unifies the continent, Politico explained.
In Germany, where officials mostly succeeded in suppressing the increase in new cases, small stores opened in most of the country on April 20. Belgium is keeping lockdowns in place through May 3. In the Czech Republic, some nonessential businesses can open but citizens must still wear masks in public. Spain is permitting construction crews to get back to work but discouraging them from carpooling or taking public transportation.
The second takeaway is that reopening isn’t as easy as it sounds, even when so many people want to return to normal.
Denmark, for example, has already allowed children between kindergarten and age 12 to return to school, The Local reported. Officials felt the change would make it easier for parents who still must work from home. Critics thought the government was moving too fast, however. A Facebook group called “My child will not be a Covid19 guinea pig” has more than 35,000 members.
Thirdly, European countries are moving slowly.
In Austria, stores with less than 3,600 square feet can open. But social distancing and masks are mandatory, the Washington Times reported. If the number of infections doesn’t rise, other stores can open by May 2. A few weeks later, restaurants, bars and hotels will open. Concerts and other large events will be allowed in July.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called it a “step-by-step resurrection,” wrote Wired.
Foremost in many European leaders’ minds is the urge to restart their economies. While much is still unknown about the coronavirus, doctors and medical researchers have a much better handle on its fatality rate, how it spreads and how to treat those who catch it. While social distancing and vigilance are still essential, the risk-to-benefit analysis to commerce has shifted.
“One of the reasons why governments went into lockdown was that the public health benefits are very visceral — they’re right there, whereas the consequences are much more nebulous and far-reaching and diffuse,” Oxford University economist Jan-Emmanuel De Neve told Axios. “That’s changing now.”
Such knowledge cuts both ways, of course.
Most of France isn’t lifting any part of its lockdown, one of the strictest in Europe, until May 11, although a closer look at small hidden streets in Paris shows that some, tired of waiting, are opening secretly. President Vladimir Putin recently issued bleak comments about the increase in cases in Russia. Britain last week prolonged its lockdown by another three weeks.
This is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.
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