Tag: Pandemic

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Health

A Riot Amid a Pandemic: Did the Virus, Too, Storm the Capitol?

A Riot Amid a Pandemic: Did the Virus, Too, Storm the Capitol?

Three different groups – Capitol Police, rioters, and members of Congress – “spent long periods of time indoors without social distancing,” said Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease doctor at Boston University. The hand-to-hand combat was likely a super-spreader event, he added, “especially given the highly transferable variants that are in circulation.”

Dr. Barocas was referring to a highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus that was first identified in the UK. It was discovered in several US states but may have spread throughout the country, making events like the Capitol riot even riskier, he said.

The idea that members of Congress may have been exposed during an already difficult transfer of power particularly worried some scholars. “I’m not only concerned that this could lead to super-spread, but also to super-spread in people who are elected as elected officials,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And infected members of Congress and law enforcement agencies could have spread the virus among themselves if they had protected themselves from the violence, he noted.

The transition of the president

Updated

Jan. 8, 2021, 1:53 AM ET

Kansas Republican Jake LaTurner announced on Twitter early Thursday morning that he had tested positive for the virus. Mr. LaTurner was in the chamber at the monastery with fellow Congressmen for much of the day.

At least a dozen of the roughly 400 lawmakers and staff huddled in a committee room refused to wear masks even after they were offered one or did not wear them properly under their chin, said Susan Wild, Democrat Representative of Pennsylvania.

They gathered in a committee room that quickly overcrowded and made social distancing impossible, she said. Some of the lawmakers were exposed and some shouted, “Tensions were high and people were yelling at each other.”

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Business

The Pandemic Helped Reverse Italy’s Mind Drain. However Can It Final?

The Pandemic Helped Reverse Italy’s Brain Drain. But Can It Last?

When the engineer Elena Parisi left Italy at the age of 22 to pursue a career Five years ago, in London, she joined the numerous talented Italians who had escaped a sluggish job market and a lack of opportunities at home to find work abroad.

But last year, when the coronavirus pandemic forced employees around the world to work from home, Ms. Parisi, like many of her compatriots, took the opportunity to really return to Italy.

Between the Zoom meetings and her other work for a recycling company in London, she took long walks on the beach near her family’s home in Palermo, Sicily, talking to vendors in the local market about recipes at dawn.

“The quality of life here is a thousand, a thousand times better,” said Ms. Parisi, who is now in Rome.

As with so many things, the virus has a well-known phenomenon – this time Italy’s longstanding brain drain. How much things are changing, and how permanent those changes will be, is a source of debate in the country. But something is clearly different.

According to the European Commission, Italy is one of the European countries, along with Romania and Poland, that send the most workers abroad. And the proportion of Italians living abroad with a university degree is higher than that of the Italian population.

Given the money the country spends on education, Italy’s brain drain costs the country an estimated 14 billion euros (about $ 17 billion) each year, according to Confindustria, Italy’s largest business association.

Italian lawmakers had long tried to win back talented workers with tax breaks, but a bleak job market, high unemployment, baroque bureaucracy, and narrow career opportunities continued to draw many Italian graduates abroad.

Then the virus seemed to do what years of incentives couldn’t.

Last year, the number of Italians between the ages of 18 and 34 returning home rose 20 percent year over year, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.

The Italian government has welcomed the return of some of the country’s best and brightest countries as a silver lining to a pandemic brutal for Italy, calling the postponement a “great opportunity”. There is also a financial advantage as Italians who spend more than six months in the country have to pay their taxes there.

Paola Pisano, Italy’s Minister for Technological Innovation, said at a conference in October that Italy would have the chance to benefit from the skills and innovation that returning Italians bring with them.

She also said Italy must do its part to keep them there. For one thing, the country needs “a strong, diffuse, powerful and secure internet connection” so that those who have moved abroad can “return to their country and continue working for the company they worked for”.

A group of Italians formed an association called Southworking to encourage remote working from the less developed south of Italy in the hope that returning professionals would devote their free time and money to improving their hometowns.

“Your ideas, your volunteer work and your creativity stay on the land where you live,” said Elena Militello, the association’s president, who returned to Sicily from Luxembourg.

To encourage remote work, the association creates a network of cities with fast internet connections, an airport or train station nearby, and at least one common work area or library with good WiFi.

To map them, the association received help from Carmelo Ignaccolo, a graduate student in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who returned to Sicily after the coronavirus.

For the past few months, Mr Ignaccolo has been overseeing exams with the Mediterranean in the background of his zoom screen, teaching classes near his great-grandfather’s olive press, and escaping the heat by studying in a nearby Greek necropolis.

“I am 100 percent for an American professional life,” he said, “but I have a very Mediterranean lifestyle.”

Not only the south of Italy benefits from the return traffic.

Roberto Franzan, 26, a programmer who built a successful start-up in London before joining Google, returned to his home in Rome in March.

“You go to the bar and you can just start talking to just about anyone,” he said. “It worked great for me.” He said a number of interesting startups and tech companies had popped up in Italy and he could envision investing in the country.

“That moment has given us all along that getting back to your roots can be a good thing,” he said.

Italy’s business leaders have urged the government not to miss the opportunity.

“Coronavirus, the U-turn of the brain drain,” wrote Michel Martone, a former deputy labor minister, in the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero. He called on lawmakers to find a way to sustain the “extraordinary army of young people who have returned home in the face of the emergency”.

However, some experts say there aren’t really that many benefits to solidify.

While many Italians may have returned to the Tuscan countryside or Sicilian beaches, their thoughts still benefit American, British, Dutch, and other overseas businesses.

“Zoom isn’t going to solve Italy’s problems,” said Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley who focuses on labor and urban economics and is part of the Italian brain drain himself.

Brunello Rosa, a London economist who is another member of the diaspora, said returned Italians “produce an activity for a foreign entity – they create value abroad and income abroad.” He added that “the fact that they spend their salary in Italy doesn’t really make a difference.”

A more likely outcome, he said, is that the virus will lead to economic rubble and huge unemployment that will spark another wave of emigration once European countries lift their locks.

To really tackle the problem, Italy and others would need to undertake profound structural and cultural reforms that tighten bureaucracy and improve transparency, rather than relying on “people returning home because the food is bad abroad and the weather is bad “.

Mr. Ignaccolo, the MIT graduate student, plans to return to the US to pursue his academic career and the new company that programmer Mr. Franzan is starting will be based in Delaware.

The disadvantages of working in Italy are also of concern to Ms Parisi, who is concerned that her career advancement would be hampered in what she believes is an Italian business world with limited scope for younger workers. She admitted London’s lack of sun was dreary and British food bad for her skin, but said other things in life were important too.

“I am young, I am a woman and I am in a very high position,” she said, explaining that she would return to her job in London when her office reopened.

“It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I could both keep the job and live in Italy, ”she said of her time there. “But I always knew it would only be temporary.”

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Health

WHO warns of tipping level in Covid pandemic

WHO warns of tipping point in Covid pandemic

A nurse is adjusting her PPE in the intensive care unit at St. George’s Hospital in Tooting, South West London, where the number of intensive care beds for the critically ill had to be increased from 60 to 120, the vast majority of them for coronavirus patients.

Victoria Jones – PA Pictures | PA Pictures | Getty Images

LONDON – The World Health Organization on Thursday warned of a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic amid mounting fears about more infectious variants of the virus, which have led to a rapid surge in infections.

Countries are trying to find two variants, found in the UK and South Africa, which are much more transferable. Public health experts are concerned about the potential impact on vaccination efforts.

While the variants spread more easily, there is no clear evidence that the mutated viruses are associated with more severe disease outcomes. However, being more communicable means more people can become infected, and that could mean more serious infections and more deaths.

In recent weeks, optimism about the mass rollout of Covid-19 vaccines appears to have been tempered by the resurgent rate of spread of the virus.

“We were prepared for a challenging start to 2021 and that was exactly what we were looking for,” said Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, in an online press conference.

“This moment marks a turning point in the course of the pandemic where science, politics, technology and values ​​must form a united front to drive back this persistent and elusive virus.”

“We are right in the middle”

A year after the Health Department’s first report on Covid-19, Kluge reflected the fact that the WHO European Region had more than 26 million Covid cases and over 580,000 deaths in 2020.

Several countries in Europe have introduced national lockdown measures in the past few days. More are expected to follow in the coming week to ease pressure on already overburdened healthcare facilities.

View of an almost deserted city center on December 15, 2020 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Niels Wenstedt | BSR agency | Getty Images News | Getty Images

As of Wednesday, nearly half of all countries and territories in Europe had a seven-day incidence of over 150 new cases per 100,000 population. The WHO estimated that more than 25% of them reported “very high” incidence rates and stressed health systems.

“I have to say that we are very right in the middle of it right now. We’re not just in the middle of it, we are probably in the most acute phase of transmission in the European region and we continue to see (a) a really big impact on clinics,” said Dr Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, during the online briefing.

“To change any of this, we really need to reduce transmission and control the spread despite the introduction of vaccinations,” said Smallwood.

The European Commission on Wednesday issued final approval for the use of the Covid vaccine developed by the US company Moderna.

It was the second vaccine to be approved by the EU executive, with the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine having previously received the green light.

The EU, which launched its vaccination program on December 27, has been criticized for slowly introducing shocks across the bloc.

Attempts are being made to catch up with Israel and the US, where large numbers of people have already been vaccinated against the virus.

To date, according to the WHO, Europe has registered 27.5 million confirmed Covid cases and 603,563 deaths.

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Business

New York Gov. Cuomo briefs the press on Covid pandemic

New York Gov. Cuomo briefs the press on Covid pandemic

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a press conference Tuesday on the coronavirus after it was announced that the state has identified its first Covid-19 case caused by a new, more contagious variant of the virus.

On Monday, Cuomo told reporters on a conference call that New York had confirmed its first Covid-19 case with the new strain B.1.1.7, originally discovered in the United Kingdom. The man, who is now recovering, lives in New York state with no travel history, the governor said.

The strain, which has also been found in California, Florida, and Colorado, is believed to be communicable but doesn’t appear to make people sicker or increase the risk of death from Covid-19, experts have said.

“If other states could test as much as we tested and tested on the British strain as much as we tested, they would find them,” Cuomo said.

During a press conference earlier Monday, the Democratic governor urged state hospitals to speed up their allocations of coronavirus vaccines and threatened fines of up to $ 10,000 if they fail to use the doses by the end of this week.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Health

‘Shedding our grip’: In some neighborhoods, the devastation of the pandemic goes far past the illness itself.

‘Losing our grip’: In some neighborhoods, the devastation of the pandemic goes far beyond the disease itself.

Numerous numbers can quantify how the pandemic and the resulting recession hit the United States: at least 7.8 million people fell into poverty, the biggest slump in six decades; 85 million Americans say they have had trouble paying basic household expenses, including food and rent.

But those numbers don’t capture the feeling of mounting despair in some communities that struggled before the pandemic. In certain neighborhoods on the east side of Cleveland, for example, longtime residents and workers speak of a steady breakup.

Shots echoed almost every night, they say. Cleveland Police reported six murders within 24 hours in November. Like in Cincinnati, Wichita, Kan. And for several other US cities, 2020 was the worst year for murders in Cleveland in decades.

Everyone’s talking about crazy driving – in the past few months, cars have crashed into a corner grocery store, house, and popular local restaurant in the neighborhood of Slavic Village. In Cuyahoga County, 19 people died of overdoses in one week. All while the virus continues its deadly spread.

“Sometimes,” said the Rev. Richard Gibson, whose 101-year-old church is in the Slavic village, “we feel that we no longer have a grip on civilization.”

The places where many would normally have found out about new benefits and new rules – such as having a decent internet connection – are now closed.

“Our library is no longer open, our Boys Club is no longer open,” said Tony Brancatelli, a member of the city council to whose parish the Slavic village belongs.

A decade ago, during the foreclosure crisis, parts of Mr Brancatelli’s parish were among the hardest hit parts of the country, but more people kept their jobs. They had friends and relatives whom they could move in with or contact for financial assistance. Today, when parts of the Slavic village have over 30 percent unemployment and a virus is spreading in small gatherings, these supports are not there.

And the virus continues to rage. Cleveland has been spared the catastrophic cases of cities like Detroit or New Orleans, but has just weathered its worst two-month expansion. At the end of December, four out of five intensive care beds in hospitals in Cuyahoga County were in use.

In the university settlement, a 94-year-old social service facility in the Slavic village, there used to be a weekly dinner for everyone in the community. This has changed for take away. Some of the people who have been routinely screened by the organization appear to have simply disappeared and stopped answering the phone or knocking on the door.

“The community felt frayed and forgotten anyway,” said Earl Pike, executive director of University Settlement. “It’s starting to feel a little ‘Mad Max’-y.”

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Health

U.S. air journey hits pandemic excessive over New Yr’s

U.S. air travel hits pandemic high over New Year's

A member of the New York Army National Guard distributes health forms to travelers at LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York, United States on Thursday, December 24, 2020.

Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. air traffic reached its highest level since mid-March on Saturday, fearing that the increase in vacation travel will lead to another spike in Covid-19 cases and deaths in the coming weeks.

Even as the coronavirus raged across the country, 1,192,881 people passed airport security checks on Saturday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Air traffic is still declining significantly compared to previous years, but increased during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays despite warnings from health experts and elected officials to restrict travel and family gatherings.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that the pandemic could likely worsen over the next few weeks as the US has a delayed influence from vacation travel after Christmas.

“This is what happens. It’s terrible, it’s unfortunate, but it was predictable,” said Fauci, one of the country’s top infectious disease experts, during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.

December was the deadliest and most contagious month of the pandemic in the United States. According to the Johns Hopkins University, the country has an average of more than 2,600 deaths per day.

Three states have now also found cases of the new, more transmissible strain of coronavirus in people with no history of travel.

The general surgeon Dr. Jerome Adams on Sunday urged Americans to wear masks and social distancing to mitigate the projected surge in infections.

“What we do now is important,” Adams said during an interview on CNN. “If you’ve gathered outside of your household without a mask over the holidays, now is the time to take action.”

“You can still quarantine yourself. You can still get tested knowing that more than 50% of the spread is now in asymptomatic people,” he added.

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Business

‘A Slap within the Face’: The Pandemic Disrupts Younger Oil Careers

‘A Slap in the Face’: The Pandemic Disrupts Young Oil Careers

HOUSTON – Sabrina Burns, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, thought that in a few months after graduating, she would embark on a lucrative career in the oil and gas industry.

But the collapse in demand for oil and gas during the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted their well-designed plans, forcing them to consider a new avenue.

“We got a slap in the face, a completely unforeseen situation that shook our entire mindset,” said Ms. Burns, who studies petroleum engineering. “Like all of my classmates, I applied for every oil and gas site I saw and nothing really came up. I am discouraged. “

With fewer people commuting and traveling, the oil and gas industry has suffered a severe blow. Oil companies have laid off more than 100,000 workers. Many companies have closed refineries and some have filed for bankruptcy protection.

The industry has drawn thousands of young people with the promise of secure careers in recent years as shale drilling began and made the United States the world’s largest oil producer. But many students and graduates say they are no longer sure that there is a place for them in the industry. Even after the pandemic ends, some of them fear that growing climate change concerns will lead to an inevitable decline in oil and gas.

These students seek elite positions in an oil and gas industry that employs approximately two million people. Even after the most recent layoffs, oil companies still employ more people than the fast-growing wind and solar companies, which together employ at least 370,000 people, according to trade groups.

Ms. Burns, 22, said her choices had narrowed significantly over the past nine months. With oil and gas options limited, she recently took on an internship with an engineering firm specializing in energy conservation and may have applied to a graduate school in environmental sciences. She is also considering moving in with her sister after graduation to save money.

“I have a feeling companies are going to be pretty careful when it comes to hiring new employees,” she said.

Ms. Burns was lured into an oil and gas career by stories told by her father, a helicopter pilot, about the successful engineers he met while servicing offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. But while her professors have been talking about the future of oil and gas companies, she is concerned.

Even before the pandemic, Ms. Burns said, she had some doubts about her chosen industry. Other students, and even an Uber driver who took them and others to an oil industry banquet in 2018, asked questions about the future of oil and gas and why renewable energies might be a better choice.

“Have you ever heard of a solar panel?” She remembers the Uber driver who asked her and her friends.

“The silent judgment and the passing comments weighed on me,” she added. Her parents persuaded her to stick with her program, and Ms. Burns said she was committed to the industry and working to improve her environmental performance.

“I hope that at some point I will be able to use all of my skills and knowledge,” she said.

Stephen Zagurski, a PhD student in geology at Rice University, said the timing of his graduation in the coming weeks was “not perfect, far from it”.

“You have a shortage of vacancies and you have a huge talent pool and an abundance of graduates leaving school,” he added. “It will make it difficult to get into the industry.”

However, 23-year-old Zagurski said the oil and gas industry will bounce back, as it has done many times over the last century, despite popular belief that the pandemic would permanently reduce energy consumption habits. “Demand will come back,” he said. “Let’s face it here, how many things in our daily lives contain some type of petroleum-based product.”

Mr. Zagurski is interning with Roxanna Oil, a small company with managers who are his second cousins, and has been given increasing levels of responsibility.

He can likely come to Roxanna full time after graduation and is confident that the market for young geoscientists and engineers will eventually recover. If the oil industry does not recover, he is also considering working or doing a PhD in geothermal or environmental science. “Everyone is waiting for their time to see what will happen,” he said.

Myles Hampton Arvie, a senior at the University of Houston studying finance and accounting, wanted to follow his father into the oil and gas industry.

“Energy and gas are something that I love,” he said. “Oil and gas are not going anywhere for the next 20 or 30 years. So why not be a part of it while we make this clean energy transition?”

His father was a project manager on offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Arvie is interested in an office job and has completed two internships at EY, also known as Ernst & Young. He has created financial models, conducted audits, and refined financial statements for several American and Canadian oil companies. He became vice chairman of the Energy Coalition, a student group that hosts educational and job fairs for students.

Mr. Arvie drew enough attention to land interviews with several oil and gas companies, but one vacancy turned out to be elusive. “It’s very competitive,” he said, and the downturn has only made it harder to get a position.

Arvie, 22, who is due to graduate in May, has switched careers to take a position at JPMorgan Chase, where he is expected to work in derivatives and marketing in the tech industry. However, one day he could find a place in the energy industry.

“I’m a little disappointed,” he said. “But you have to keep it moving.”

Clayton Brown, a graduate student at the University of Houston studying petroleum geology, recalls finding an article online four years ago claiming that the future is no better for geologists studying underground oil and gas reserves could look.

“I saw the salary petroleum geologists make and immediately got interested,” said Mr. Brown.

At Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, NC, Mr. Brown studied geology at Western Colorado University. He was fascinated by the science behind seismic testing and rock and sand formations.

Confident in his career choice, he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to continue his education.

Mr. Brown, 23, has $ 55,000 in student debt. By the time he graduates next fall, he will owe about $ 70,000. To make matters worse, the small oil company he interned at recently stopped paying him as it reduced the cost of managing the downturn.

He moved back to North Carolina to live with his parents while taking classes and mailing out résumés online. “Covid was pretty much the curveball,” he said. “Nobody expects a virus to destroy the oil industry.”

Even so, he said he had no regrets and called the downturn “just bad timing”.

Tosa Nehikhuere, the son of Nigerian immigrants, was relatively lucky. Shortly after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, he joined a major European oil company and worked in various internships and jobs on site and on the trading platform.

But it’s been such an unsafe ride that he’s already worried about the direction he’s headed in college.

Mr. Nehikhuere’s parents were poor in Nigeria. They moved to New York, where Mr. Nehikhuere’s father drove a taxi. They eventually made their way to Houston, where life was cheaper and his parents had careers in nursing.

They embraced the oil business that dominates Texas and their homeland and pushed their son into petroleum engineering. It is a common path of immigrants and first and second generation Americans in Texas.

In the middle of Mr. Nehikhuere’s freshman year of study, the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries flooded the world market with oil in an attempt to undercut the booming American shale oil drilling industry and bring prices down.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking,” he recalled. “I’ve seen seniors get frozen with three internships at the same company. Juniors, sophomore students struggling to get internships. All in all, it was pretty bad in terms of job prospects. “

Mr Nehikhuere was considering switching majors, but he expected oil prices to recover, as they had so often, through most of 2018 and 2019.

But the coronavirus pandemic set in as Mr Nehikhuere’s career took off, and now he’s worried again.

Mr Nehikhuere, 24, did not want to identify his employer but said he is laying off workers and debating how aggressively he should move away from oil and gas to renewable energy.

If the company is moving quickly towards clean energy, he is not sure there will be a place for him. “How much will my skills be transferred?”

“There will be a significant number of layoffs, changes and outsourcing,” he added. “To be honest, I don’t know if it will affect me or not. It’s really in the air. “

Mr Nehikhuere is already considering a change and may be looking for a job with a consulting firm or a company providing technology to oil and gas companies.

“As I think more and more about my career, the volatility that comes with working for an oil and gas company can be very worrying,” he said. “I prefer something more stable.”

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Business

Pandemic Driving Is Nonetheless Down, however Will Insurers Grant Extra Reduction?

Pandemic Driving Is Still Down, but Will Insurers Grant More Relief?

Nevertheless, “the car tariffs remain below the values ​​before Covid 19,” said the company. “Our approach is to make incremental adjustments based on driving behavior to minimize the impact on customers.”

Here are some questions and answers about auto insurance rates:

What if I’m not sure I received credit in the spring?

Drivers who haven’t received a check should check their statements to see if they got the relief promised by their insurer, say consumer advocates. If it’s unclear or you can’t find your bill, contact your insurance agent or company directly.

C.and I ask that my premium be checked if I drive less because of the pandemic.

Yes. Several insurers said they encouraged drivers to contact them for a policy review if their driving habits changed drastically. It is helpful to have specific details about the change such as: For example, the distance you would drive to work if you were still at the office and away from home.

The average cost of auto insurance is $ 1,548 per year, or $ 129 per month, according to Zebra, a car tariff website. However, prices vary based on factors such as your age and driving history and where you live.

How else can I reduce my car insurance premium?

One way is to increase your deductible, the amount you pay for a claim paid by your insurer. (If you need $ 1,000 worth of repairs and your deductible is $ 500, your insurer will write you a check for $ 500.) A higher deductible saves you money on monthly premiums, but it means you get more out of pocket repairs pay to have an accident.

Some insurers also offer “usage-based” insurance, also known as telematics. You agree to have a device in your car that allows you to track your driving habits. This may be a cheaper option – but some people are skeptical about privacy concerns.

You can also see if a competing insurer offers you a cheaper rate. Just make sure you don’t cancel your current policy before activating a new one so you don’t have a gap in coverage, Heller advised.

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New York Gov. Cuomo briefs the press on Covid pandemic as outbreak worsens

NY Gov. Cuomo holds a press briefing as state prepares to distribute Covid vaccine

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will hold a press conference on Wednesday on the coronavirus as Covid-19 hospital admissions hit the levels last reported in early May.

According to the Covid Tracking Project, an independent volunteer organization launched by journalists in the Atlantic, 7,814 patients with Covid-19 were hospitalized in New York on Tuesday. This is the highest number since May 8th.

The increase in sick patients has led the state to prepare to reuse the Javits Center as an emergency Covid-19 field hospital. This emerges from reports in the New York Post quoting Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi and Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling. Cuomo has already announced that the state will reopen a field hospital on Staten Island after a surge in hospital stays.

The Democratic governor is also considering new lockdown measures in January if the current surge continues, although new restrictions are not guaranteed, he said. According to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the state has reported over 100 daily Covid-19 deaths for over two weeks, a total of more than 37,600 deaths since the pandemic began.

“As we near the New Year and the end of the holiday season, all New Yorkers must remember one simple truth – celebrating smart stop shutdowns,” Cuomo said in a statement Tuesday.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Politics

Improve the pandemic stimulus funds

Increase the pandemic stimulus payments

Sheila Bair, former FDIC Chair.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

For his critics, President Trump has an annoying habit of being right sometimes. Case in point is the long-awaited Pandemic Aid Act.

We were all grateful when he signed it on Sunday. It had been delayed for months by political gambling and jockeying. However, his criticism of the relatively low cash payments on this bill – $ 600 per adult and per dependent child for those earning up to $ 75,000 per year – was accurate.

Most middle- and low-income Americans have suffered financially in one way or another from this pandemic, and their suffering has deepened in recent months as Congress faltered. Most will continue to suffer from the economic plight of Covid-19, which will last much of 2021.

Those $ 600 payments – only half the amount Congress approved in the CARES bill last March – will soon be exhausted. The Senate should approve the House’s legislation to increase it to $ 2,000. If not, the Biden administration should make this their first job next year.

The idea of ​​unconditional financial aid has been around for some time. With this pandemic, it’s finally due. Experiments dating back to the Nixon administration show that low-income families lower the poverty rate, improve family health, and improve children’s test scores.

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In the past, such payments have been countered with obnoxious arguments that such “freebies” are wasted on cigarettes and alcohol, or that they put work off. The research available shows that they are used to cover the basic cost of living with little impact on the recipients’ employment.

This also applies to how American households spent the first payment round approved in March. According to a study by the American Research Institute, the bulk of this funding was spent on living expenses.

For households with a combined income of less than $ 75,000, nearly 80% said they spent most of that on things like groceries, utilities, and rent. About 54% of wealthier families – those making more than $ 150,000 – also used most of the money to meet basic household needs. Some families said they put most of it into savings: 9% of lower-income households versus around 30% of wealthier families.

Critics of the payments argue that money used for saving instead of consumption does not provide economic stimulus. This is true when the goal is solely to stimulate the economy.

However, given the pervasive economic devastation from Covid-19 and the overall declining financial health of middle and low income families in America prior to the pandemic, we should also worry about propping up their precarious financial condition. A recent CNBC poll shows that 61% of Americans will have used up their emergency savings by the end of this year.

Another benefit of the unconditional cash support: It can be distributed quickly, making it particularly suitable for sudden economic shocks. Thanks to yeoman’s work by the Treasury Department, the vast majority of eligible families receive the second round of cash payments within three weeks.

Compare this to state unemployment benefit schemes collapsing under the weight of millions of claims. It takes time to accept and process applications and to verify eligibility. According to a recent Pew study, only three states currently meet the federal guideline that at least 87% of applicants receive their funding within three weeks. Residues have become the norm. 14 states, including New York and California, meet this standard less than 50% of the time.

The unconditional cash support also has significant collateral benefits. When families spend the money on goods and services, businesses as well as state and local governments benefit from higher sales tax revenues. Such support is also arguably more efficient in allocating resources than complex programs that limit help to specific purposes. Families know their own needs better than anyone, and optimal economic distribution of these resources can be better achieved by spending accordingly.

Americans seem to be “getting” the benefits of cash payments even if Washington politicians have been slow to prevail. According to a survey, two in three Americans support a second round of payments. A similar proportion considers the checks in the current business cycle to be too few.

Given the proven inability of our elected officials to respond promptly when Americans are in need, the Biden administration should not only seek a new round of payments, but also put in place a permanent system that automatically distributes funds when our economy suffers a major shock.