COVID-19

G20 Leaders’ Declaration, 22 November 2020

· November 23, 2020 · COVID-19, G20 · , , , · No Comments

The two day Leaders’ Summit of the G20, chaired in 2020 by Saudi Arabia, ended yesterday with the issuance of a Leaders’ Declaration. https://g20.org/en/media/Documents/G20%20Riyadh%20Summit%20Leaders%20Declaration_EN.pdf. The twelve page document is embedded below.

G20-Riyadh-Summit-Leaders-Declaration_EN

Yesterday, I had put up a post that looked at the WTO’s Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff’s statement to the G20 on important measures needed in the trade arena to help with responding to the global health pandemic, economic recovery and WTO reform. See November 22, 2020, DDG Wolff’s comments to G20 on immediate challenges for trade to address economic rebound from the pandemic and for WTO reform, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/11/22/ddg-wolffs-comments-to-g20-on-immediate-challenges-for-trade-to-address-economic-rebound-from-the-pandemic-and-for-wto-reform/. The activities of the G20 are far broader than simply the trade issues reviewed in yesterday’s post and much of the Declaration looks at various aspects of addressing recovery from the pandemic, including access to vaccines and therapeutics. However, on the trade agenda in particular identified by DDG Wolff, the G20 does not appear to have addressed the issue of trade finance for developing and least developed countries, did not call for creating duty free treatment for all pharmaceuticals and medical goods relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, and while supportive of WTO reform did not provide specifics or a sense of time urgency. The Declaration contains 38 paragraphs broken in four sections. Many deal with topics that are being examined in part at the WTO (e.g., digital trade) or that may be going forward (e.g., environment, climate change). There was only one paragraph on trade and investment (para. 12) (under section “B. Building a Resilient and Long-Lasting Recovery”). The paragraph reads as follows:

“12. Trade and Investment: Supporting the multilateral trading system is now as important as ever. We strive to realize the goal of a free, fair, inclusive, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable, and stable trade and investment environment, and to keep our markets open. We will continue to work to ensure a level playing field to foster an enabling business environment. We endorse the G20 Actions to Support World Trade and Investment in Response to COVID-19. We recognize the contribution that the Riyadh Initiative on the Future of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has made by providing an additional opportunity to discuss and reaffirm the objectives and foundational principles of the multilateral trading system as well as to demonstrate our ongoing political support for the necessary reform of the WTO, including in the lead up to the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference. We recognize the need to increase the sustainability and resilience of national, regional, and global supply chains that foster the sustainable integration of developing and least developed countries into the trading system, and share the objective of promoting inclusive economic growth including through increased participation of micro-, small-, medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in international trade and investment. We note that structural problems in some sectors, such as excess capacities, can cause a negative impact.”

The G20 Declaration in paragraph 3 provides a statement indicating G20 members “will spare no effort to ensure * * * affordable and equitable access for all people, consistent with members’ commitments to incentivize innovation,” to COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. The paragraph refers to the efforts of the “Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) initiative and its COVAX facility,” and commits G20 members “to addressing the remaining global financing needs.” While obviously encouraging, the financing needs that remain are large both for vaccines and for testing and treatment. Total additional funding needs approach $40 billion. See Statement by President von der Leyen at the joint press conference with President Michel ahead of the G20 Summit, Brussels, 20 November 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_20_2170. Such contributions are voluntary and substantially exceed what has been pledged or received to date. So time will tell whether G20 countries actually fulfil the general commitment included in yesterday’s declaration.

The New York Times in an article on November 22 headlined “G20 Summit Closes With Little Progress and Big Gaps Between Trump and Allies,” describes the large number of topics where the current U.S. Administration has been at odds with many of the other G20 leaders and the resulting challenges to meaningful joint action as opposed to “general appeals for more global cooperation” and for “affordable and equitable access” to vaccines and therapeutics. New York Times, Nov. 22, 2020, G20 Summit Closes With Little Progress and Big Gaps Between Trump and Allies, ahttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/us/politics/g20-summit-trump.html. While the Trump Administration undoubtedly has contributed to the lack of greater specifics in the Declaration, there are undoubtedly strong differences among different G20 members on what commitments should be undertaken that involve G20 members specifically.

Conclusion

The G20 process has been important over the last decade or so in mobilizing the world’s leading nations to provide leadership to address global challenges. The success of the group’s efforts depends on leadership of the majors and a common understanding of the challenges at hand. There are structural challenges in the current G20 configuration with different economic models and different levels of economic development providing points of conflict as well as points of expanded understanding of global needs. The challenges have been exacerbated by the concerns of the current U.S. Administration with multilateral organizations and with whether climate change is an actual problem.

With the current internal friction points, the G20 has nonetheless put forward a largely united front in seeking to meet the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic shocks through collaboration and to seek to rebuild more sustainably and more inclusively. The lack of specifics in some areas may be better addressed under a new U.S. Administration’s participation with the expected closer ties the Biden Administration will have with at least many of the G20 members.

In the trade arena, the conflicts within the WTO are not likely to go away with a new U.S. Administration. That doesn’t mean that U.S. leadership couldn’t permit rapid movement on a number of issues that would be helpful in addressing the pandemic and the global economic recovery. But WTO reform and even singular issues like updated coverage by the Pharmaceutical Agreement or the elimination of tariffs on medical goods unfortunately are likely to take way too long to be helpful in the current pandemic. That leaves voluntary actions by countries in their own interest as the likely option most likely to provide some improved market access during the pandemic.

DDG Wolff’s comments to G20 on immediate challenges for trade to address economic rebound from the pandemic and for WTO reform

· November 22, 2020 · COVID-19, G20 · No Comments

Below are Deputy Director-General Wolff’s comments to the G20 Leaders’ Summit on November 21.

“Thank you very much, Your Royal Highness, and I thank Saudi Arabia for its leadership.

“With respect to trade, there are three immediate challenges: to utilize trade to help underwrite the economic recovery, to facilitate trade in essential medical products to treat the pandemic, and to reform the institutional framework for world trade.

“First, trade finance for the developing world needs to be restored. The sum needed is very large, in the trillions of dollars. This step has been called for by business and by all the major international development banks along with the WTO. This is not just a development issue. When crops do not move and factories are idled throughout the developing world, the global recovery will be delayed for all. Close co-operation among the international financial institutions, the WTO and the large commercial banks will be needed. A trade finance initiative should be seen as an essential part of improving the outlook for economic recovery.

“Second, it is time for WTO Members to come together to agree on and implement measures to speed the supply of essential medical products worldwide to where they are needed.

“Global trade in pharmaceuticals should be duty-free under an updated Pharmaceutical Agreement.

“Medical equipment should be duty-free in an immediate update of the Information Technology Agreement.

“As new vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics start to be rolled out, barriers at borders must be reduced, with an international understanding limiting the use of export restrictions, providing for much greater transparency and accelerating improvements in trade facilitation efforts, particularly for the poorest countries.

“Third, and last, the identification of areas of common interest achieved by the Riyadh Initiative on the Future of the WTO should result in immediate serious engagement by WTO Members in a major institutional reform effort. This would involve restoring the WTO’s deliberative and negotiating functions, providing binding dispute settlement seen as legitimate by all and providing for a strong proactive Secretariat. The WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference next year will be an important landmark for this work. In actively engaging in the reform effort, G20 Members can contribute immeasurably to fulfilling the vision held by the founders of the multilateral trading system seven decades ago and the WTO a quarter century ago.

“Thank you.”

WTO, DDG Wolff urges G20 leaders to back WTO action to support economic rebound, pandemic response and WTO reform, 21 November 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/ddgaw_21nov20_e.htm.

The G20 Leaders Summit is taking place virtually on November 21-22. The results of the Summit will be released later today. While a positive picture on agreed actions by the G20 will be presented, it is hard to imagine the G20 actually embracing the objectives/needs outlined by DDG Wolff.

For example, while it is likely that the G20 will lend support to a trade finance initiative to assist developing countries, the size of the initiative that is actually supported may be far less than the ambitious levels (trillions of dollars) identified as needed by Deputy Director-Wolff.

Similarly, while there is support in some quarters (e.g., the EU) for some of the trade liberalization initiatives identified in DDG Wolff’s second item, it is hard to see WTO Members being willing to reach consensus quickly on any of the three initiatives outlined. Certainly, the Pharmaceutical Agreement should be updated; how long that takes to accomplish is another issue and is unlikely to occur in a timeframe relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. So too it is unlikely that WTO Members will quickly agree to duty free treatment of medical equipment whether under the Information Technology Agreement or otherwise, although countries needing to import such equipment have to a limited extent unilaterally reduced or eliminated duties during the pandemic. Such voluntary and temporary reductions seem the more promising short term solution. Finally, while individual countries have adopted trade facilitating/streamlining actions to speed the movement of medical goods and the WTO’s notification process has provided fair transparency of government actions, it is unlikely that there will be a quick agreement on limiting the use of export restrictions. There could be agreement on improved transparency and the WTO could work with LDCs and others to help them implement trade facilitation steps useful in speeding movement of medical goods.

On the third objective, “a major institutional reform effort,” while the G20 will undoubtedly support such action and support at least two of the three stated core planks — “restoring the WTO’s deliberative and negotiating functions, providing binding dispute settlement seen as legitimate by all” — the huge differences in objectives/concerns of many of the G20 countries makes any rapid movement towards reform in fact unlikely. For example, the United States, at least under the Trump Administration, has pushed for a fundamental rebalancing of rights and obligations in light of changed economic circumstances, pushed for a determination on whether the organization can function with very different economic systems under a set of rules designed for one type of economy, is seeking a restoration of the limited role envisioned for the WTO dispute settlement system and for panels and the Appellate Body. China has different objectives and opposes most of the U.S. priorities. The EU has very different views from the United States on the dispute settlement system. Thus, even before one looks at the broader WTO Membership, these three major Members have very different views on reform that will make efforts at reform at least time consuming (years not months). DDG Wolff includes in his list of reform efforts “providing for a strong proactive Secretariat.” This is an objective that has been stated by one or more past Directors-General, but it is unclear that there is strong Member support for a stronger Secretariat. Considering the U.S. concerns with the Appellate Body, it is hard to see them wanting a stronger Secretariat at the expense of Members. Indeed, WTO Members have frozen the WTO budget for years, and India has been seeking a reduction in budget resources for the WTO (10% cut has been proposed). The U.S. has also raised questions about Secretariat actions that appear outside of the agreed role of the Secretariat.

Conclusion

The G20 can have and has had an important role in limiting some of the more harmful actions of both G20 countries and of others in time of crisis. The G20 efforts to mobilize agreement on ways to keep markets open, limit market restrictions and support global initiatives to help smaller and more vulnerable countries has been and will continue to be important to reduce the depth of economic contraction and speed of economic rebound. And, of course, the G20 efforts go far beyond trade.

It has been important that the G20 has been open to receiving input from various organizations, including the WTO. The G20 has the ability to act fairly quickly where there is agreement among the countries. On trade, there are some major differences among G20 members not only on WTO reform but also on the need for existing WTO options for temporary export restrictions and willingness for providing greater transparency or to reach quick agreement on trade liberalization actions. Some G20 members have proposed broader WTO actions, and such actions may very well occur in the coming years although whether in time to alter the reality in the field during the COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely. Voluntary actions are obviously available in terms of reducing import restrictions including tariffs on medical goods and medicines/vaccines, and a number of countries have adopted streamlining actions to speed movement of medical goods during the pandemic.

Deputy Director-General Wolff’s statement to the G20 Leaders Summit contains important possible actions that the G20 could take or support. Some support from G20 members will almost certainly be forthcoming. Unfortunately, G20 action will not likely result in complete adoption of DDG Wolff’s proposals, nor will G20 action likely permit rapid implementation within the WTO or other organizations of DDG Wolff’s proposals. But it is useful to have a picture of a highly desirable future even if the audience for the message is unlikely to rise to the occasion for the global good.

United States becomes only country to have more than 2,000,000 new COVID-19 cases in fourteen days

· November 19, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , · No Comments

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) daily report, “COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 19 November 2020,” shows the number of new cases in the United States surpassing two million for the fourteen days November 6 -19. The 2,043,321 new cases more than doubled the 1,019,609 new cases reported by the United States for October 19-November 1 (the first time the United States surpassed one million in a fourteen day period according to the daily reports from the ECDC). For the last fourteen days, the U.S. accounted for 24.99% of new cases recorded around the world. The 11,529,807 cases recorded by the U.S. since the end of December 2019 have been 20.45% of the world’s total cases of 56.37 million. The U.S. has just 4.3% of the world’s population.

The United States is the largest source of increases in new cases and has been that over the last month. Europe which has suffered a huge increase this fall is seeing a reduction from peak numbers for many countries.

The United States is seeing new records in terms of hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19. The COVID Tracking Project shows the U.S. having 79,410 hospitalizations on November 18, up from 28,606 on September 20 and nearly 20,000 hospitalizations more than prior peaks in July (59,677 on July 24) and April (59,773 on April 21). Some sources are projecting hospitalizations could exceed 100,000 in the coming weeks.

Deaths in the U.S. are also increasing with the COVID Project recording 1,869 on November 18. The ECDC 19 November 2020 COVID-19 situation update worldwide shows U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 as 250,537 or 18.55% of the world total up til November 19. With the spiraling number of new cases and huge increases in hospitalizations, the daily death totals are projected to continue to increase.

Many U.S. states are overwhelmed with COVID-19 hospitalizations, and there continue to be challenges for medical workers obtaining needed personal protective equipment despite increased global production and some domestic onshoring. See, e.g., NPR, November 10, 2020, COVID-19 Hospitalizations Hit Record Highs. Where Are Hospitals Reaching Capacity?, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/10/933253317/covid-19-hospitalizations-are-surging-where-are-hospitals-reaching-capacity; American Medical Association, Amid PPE shortage, AMA collaboration offers supplier for doctors, November 16, 2020,https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/amid-ppe-shortage-ama-collaboration-offers-supplier-doctors.

While the news from several pharmaceutical companies about results from phase 3 vaccine tests are highly encouraging, production and distribution of the vaccines, once approved, means the U.S. will be dealing with the continuing surge of new cases for a number of months to come at least. Some forecasts predict deaths in the U.S. reaching 430,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2021. Moreover, with a change in government occurring in late January, the U.S. is suffering from a lack of coordination from the outgoing Administration with the Biden Administration as the Trump Administration has to date refused to provide access to information that is normally received by incoming Administrations. Such handicapping of an incoming Administration will have significant adverse effects on the nation’s ability to distribute vaccines once approved and otherwise permit the Biden Administration to get on top of the pandemic.

Complicating the economic and trade picture in the United States is the lack of an additional stimulus package during the growing crisis from the pandemic. Millions of Americans face serious challenges with the expiration of various relief programs, some at the end of December. Millions are at risk of eviction beginning in January. See CNN, November 18, 2020, Key pandemic relief programs are set to expire at the end of the year. No one knows what’s next, https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/politics/covid-relief-programs-expiring-in-december/index.html.

While before the election, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were discussing a possible package of around $2 trillion, the Senate was not on board with a large package, and there was no agreement on the package even between the Administration and the House. It is looking increasingly unlikely that an agreement will be reached before Joe Biden is sworn in as the next President on January 20, 2021, meaning months of delay before new legislation can be enacted. Such delay will cause significant harm to millions and millions of Americans and to the overall U.S. economy.

A large reason for the significant rebound in the third quarter from the steep drop in GDP in the second quarter in the U.S. was the broad and deep stimulus package adopted much earlier in the year. Without a new stimulus package and with surging new cases, there is the very real risk of slipping into a double dip recession. See, e.g., The Hill, November 15, 2020, Fears of double-di recession rise alongside COVID-19 cases,https://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/525951-fears-of-double-dip-recession-rise-alongside-covid-19-cases. Indeed, with more and more states imposing at least some restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the economic rebound is certainly already slowing. The New York Fed Staff Nowcast projection of 4th quarter 2020 GDP growth has shrunk from an estimate of 7.12% on August 28 to just 2.86% projected on November 13.

The United States is not alone in facing challenges getting new stimulus measures put in place or facing a double dip recession or seeing large surges in cases during the fall. See, e.g., NPR, November 17, 2020, Hungary and Poland Block EU Budget with Pandemic Relief Funds for Hard-Hit Nations, https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/11/17/935775895/hungary-and-poland-block-eu-budget-with-pandemic-relief-funds-for-hard-hit-natio; CNN Business, November 5, 2020, The UK economy heads back into recession, https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/economy/uk-economy-recession/index.html. Europe has already reduced its forecasted GDP growth for 2021 because of the fall resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

Conclusion

The United States continues to struggle with a pandemic that has affected all parts of the world. The U.S.’s response has been the least successful and the most costly of any nation in the world. As we head towards the end of the year, the virus continues to spiral out of control across the country with many states and local communities basically at the breaking point in terms of health care services. The President and many of his supporters have politicized basic public health steps needed to control the virus. While the Trump Administration has helped support expediting research, development and production of vaccines, the U.S. is now and will almost certainly remain the country with the worst record in terms of infections and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s record of more than two million new infections recorded in the last fourteen days is just one more “first” that the United States should never have achieved.

New COVID-19 cases over a fourteen day period continue to soar past eight million, up from five million on October 22

· November 17, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to see an upward spiral in terms of the number of new infections although there has been a recent slowdown in new cases in Europe. Europe and the United States continue to constitute the bulk of the increase over the last 26 days as the following graph taken from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s COVID-19 situation update world wide, as of 17 November 2020 shows.

Distribution of COVID-19 cases worldwide, as of 17 November 2020

Distribution of COVID-19 cases worldwide, as of 17 November 2020


More specifically, in the last twenty-six days, the number of new COVID-19 cases globally over the last fourteen days has shot from five million to over eight million — a near sixty percent increase in a little over three and a half weeks. The total new cases identified since late December 2019 globally are now 55.15 million as of November 17.

On October 22, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recorded the first day where the number of new COVID-19 cases over a fourteen day period globally surpassed five million (5,042,415). In just eight days, on October 30, the ECDC reports the fourteen day total shooting past six million new cases (6,093,987), an increase of 1,051,572 or 20.85% in eight days. The report for November 7 shows the total new cases in the last fourteen days crossing the seven million mark — 7,044,267 — or 15.59% over October 30 and 39.70% over October 22. And today, November 17, the ECDC report shows new cases in the last fourteen days as passing eight million (8,031,073) — 14.01% above November 7, 31.79% above October 30 and 59.27% above October 22. As reviewed in three prior posts (October 22 and October 30), the U.S. and Europe were major factors in hitting five million, six million and seven million daily cases and today’s data show them to continue to be the major causes of the continued rapid escalation in global cases. See October 22, 2020, COVID-19 new cases over last 14 days pass 5,000,000 for first time on October 22, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/22/covid-19-new-cases-over-last-14-days-pass-5000000-for-first-time-on-october-22/; October 30, 2020,  In last eight days, the number of global new COVID-19 cases over past fourteen days has grown from five to six million, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/30/in-last-eight-days-the-number-of-global-new-covid-19-cases-over-past-fourteen-days-has-grown-from-five-to-six-million/; November 7, 2020:  New COVID-19 cases over a fourteen day period continue to soar from five million on October 22 to six million on October 30 to seven million on November 7, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/11/07/new-covid-19-cases-over-a-fourteen-day-period-continue-to-soar-from-five-million-on-october-22-to-six-million-on-october-30-to-seven-million-on-november-7/

The table below shows the fourteen day totals for selected countries as of October 22, October 30, November 7 and November 17, and the change in new cases from October 22 – November 17. These twenty countries show an increase in the twenty-six days from October 22 – November 17 of 2,772,211 additional new cases while the increase from all countries was 2,988,658. So the 20 countries account for 92.76% of the total growth. In the prior periods (October 30 and November 7), the 20 countries had accounted for more than 100% of the increase in new cases. The 20 countries accounted for 2,558,802 new cases for the fourteen days ending October 22 or 50.75% of the global total at that time. For the fourteen days ending October 30, the 20 countries accounted for 3,584,674 new cases or 58.82% of the global total. For the fourteen days ending November 7, the 20 countries accounted for 4,568,491 new cases or 64.85% of the global total. And for the fourteen days ending November 17, the 20 countries accounted for 5,331,013 new cases or 66.38% of new cases. The table below shows that eight European countries — France, Spain, Belgium, Czechia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovakia and Slovenia — showed significant new case reductions in the November 17 period compared to the November 7 period.

Country10-22-202010-30-202011-7-202011-17-2020Change
United States786,488966,2691,245,8761,914,2411,127,753
France303,912473,085620,778524,800220,888
United Kingdom244,954291,718315,486336,817 91,863
Spain169,394238,709282,700256,167 86,773
Italy115,708234,993377,812474,293358,585
Russia198,716227,530252,794315,975117,259
Belgium100,119171,522152,663 72,643 -27,476
Poland95,260169,302265,447338,308243,048
Czechia113,555161,058165,174114,627 1,072
Germany81,905151,137224,483255,367173,462
Netherlands103,024126,543125,163 84,442 -18,582
Ukraine76,48989,178109,792143,495 67,006
Switzerland35,26173,418107,837 93,395 58,134
Romania48,53260,55086,030114,508 65,976
Hungary18,16628,38848,845 65,890 47,724
Austria19,38735,43661,823 93,528 74,141
Bulgaria10,59220,64335,665 45,274 34,682
Slovakia18,91327,50333,177 25,447 6,534
Slovenia8,85920,02123,345 19,338 10,479
Sweden9,56817,67133,601 42,458 32,890
Total2,558,8023,584,6744,568,4915,331,0132,772,211

While the United States has the largest absolute increase in the last twenty-five days for a single country and accounted for 40.68% of the increase recorded by the twenty countries for the October 22-November 17 period, the U.S. accounted for 87.65% of the increase of the twenty countries for the November 7-November 17 period. While Europe has been the largest part of the increase in October and November, the rate of increase has slowed or declined for many European countries in the last fourteen days.

Europe led the U.S. in the dramatic increase in new cases in October and in the reintroduction of restrictions in many countries to attempt to bring the coronavirus back under control. Actions in Europe appear to be working at least in a large number of countries as the number of new cases is declining in some countries as can be seen in the table above. The United States is continuing with huge increases in new cases, in hospitalizations and is seeing a growing number of deaths. Many U.S. states are putting in place at least some restrictions to try to slow the growth of new cases and reduce the strain on the health care system. The next week or two will help understand whether the actions being taken in the U.S. are sufficient to reduce the growth in new cases.

Other parts of the world are not experiencing a second wave to the same extent as Europe or the United States, although much of the Americas remain at very high levels of new cases. Some major countries who have been seriously hit in recent months are seeing substantial reductions in new cases. India is one example — on October 22, the last 14 days showed 871,291 new cases; on October 30, for the last 14 days new cases were down to 718,383; on November 7 were down to 647,398 for the 14 days ; and for the fourteen days ending on November 1, India’s new cases were down to 606,667.

The EU and the US face problems on additional aid packages

The EU has at least a temporary crisis as Hungary and Poland have blocked adoption of the aid package that had been agreed to. See, e.g., Euronews, 16 November 2020, Hungary and Poland block EU’s COVID-19 recovery package over new rule of law drive, https://www.euronews.com/2020/11/16/hungary-and-poland-threaten-coronavirus-recovery-package.

The U.S. Congress and Administration have been unable to agree to additional stimulus funds to help the U.S. economy and citizens deal with the continued COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. has more than 22 million Americans still out of work and with government assistance having terminated or to terminate shortly. Aid for small businesses and for sectors particularly hard hit by the pandemic is desperately needed as is funding for state and local governments and much more. While President Trump has urged Congress to pass an additional stimulus package, it is unlikely that action will be taken before the next Congress convenes and the new Administration is sworn in on January 20.

Progress on vaccine development

Two vaccines have completed phase 3 testing — one from Pfizer/BioNTech and one from Moderna — and information from the companies suggests efficacy rates of 90-94.5%. Thus, it is possible that these two vaccines will be approved for use in the coming weeks and will see large scale availability in the first half of 2021. Many other vaccines are in various phases of testing. So 2021 will hopefully see the roll out of various vaccines with significant availability around the world due to efforts of the companies and the efforts of the WHO/GAVI/CEPI to ensure availability to developing and least developed countries as well.

Conclusion

The top priority for many countries around the world remains getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The costs in terms of human life and serious health problems are enormous. So too the costs to the global economy from taking the steps necessary to address the pandemic are enormous.

How to address the pandemic and how to work internationally to secure a return to normalcy and a return to sustainable economic growth are the challenges for all governments and international organizations.

The fact that the number of new cases is continuing to surge globally ten and a half months after the start of global surveillance is obviously troubling and delays the return to normalcy. While some individual countries have gained control of the pandemic and others are making significant strides to reduce the number of new cases, “no one is safe until all are safe”. We have a long road to travel, and the western developed world is currently the major hot spot, struggling with the current extraordinary surge, although there are positive signs in Europe that at least many countries are slowing the spread after a very challenging September and October. We still are not in sight of a global peak although the rate of growth is slowing for the world as a whole though not for countries like the United States.

There is obviously some light at the end of the tunnel as vaccines and therapeutics get closer to public release. With more than 55 million infections recorded to date around the world and with more than 1.3 million deaths globally, the pressing question is how much worse will the situation become before the world gets back to normal with the pandemic controlled. The world is in for a challenging time til at least next summer and more realistically to the end of 2021 and the start of 2022.

COVID-19 Pandemic continues to spin out of control globally; U.S. becomes first country to record more than one million new cases in a week

· November 15, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , · No Comments

Ten and a half months into the global pandemic, the world remains on a sharply upward trajectory in terms of new cases. As of November 15, the global total of new cases in the last fourteen days is just under 8 million (7,925,568) with total recorded cases since the end of December 2019 topping 54 million (54,110,061). See European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 15 November 2020.

The United States accounts for 1,778,530 of the cases in the last fourteen days and became the first country to record more than one million new cases in a week — 1,043,933 for the seven days ending November 15. The 184,813 new cases recorded on November 14 is more in one day than the vast majority of countries in the world have recorded since the end of December 2019. For example 53 of 55 countries in Africa have recorded fewer cases than the U.S. did on November 14 and the other two (Morocco and South Africa) have recorded fewer cases than the U.S. recorded in the last week. Similarly 32 of 43 countries in Asia (including China) have had fewer cases over the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. had on November 14 and of the other 11, 10 have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. has had in the last week. In the Americas, 40 of 46 countries or territories (other than the U.S.) have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. recorded on November 14 and three of the other six countries have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. has recorded in the last seven days. In Europe, the other area very hard hit in the last several months, 39 of 53 countries have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. had on November 14 and of the remaining fourteen countries, 10 have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. has had in the last week. All countries and territories in Oceania (12 of 12) have had fewer cases in the last 10 1/2 months than the U.S. recorded on November 14. Indeed, the total cases of all of Oceania (combined) for the last 10 1/2 months are lower than the U.S. figures for just November 14.

Nearly every one of the fifty U.S. states is experiencing significant increases and a number of states are already struggling with health care facilities, personnel and supplies. U.S. hospitalizations are at a record high for patients with COVID-19 ( 69,455 on November 14; https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-currently-hospitalized) and are expected to go above 100,000 by the end of the year. The U.S. recorded 8,487 deaths from COVID-19 in the last week and is projected to have more than 2,000 deaths/day from COVID-19 by January. A large number of U.S. states are imposing new restrictions in an effort to halt the dramatic increase in the U.S. number of new cases. See, e.g., New York Times, November 15, 2020, Doctors Call for More Restrictions and Caution as Virus Surges, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/14/world/covid19-coronavirus-updates; CNBC, November 14, 2020, U.S. reports record Covid hospitalizations as states roll out restrictions ahead of Thanksgiving, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/14/us-reports-record-covid-hospitalizations-as-states-roll-out-restrictions-again.html; Bloomberg, November 13-14, 2020, World Clamps Down as Covid-19 Refuses to Cede: Virus Update, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-13/u-s-sets-record-as-states-move-to-tighten-rules-virus-update.

As the last of the articles referenced above shows, many European countries have also been imposing significant restrictions in an effort to bring the pandemic back under control. Some European countries are seeing some significant retrenchment from the extraordinary numbers recorded within recent weeks in the last week. Others are seeing a slowing of the rate of growth or a plateauing of new cases. For example, the ECDC data for France shows new cases in the week ending November 15 at 205,894 down significantly from the 384,080 new cases of the prior week. Italy’s rate of increase slowed with new cases in the last week at 242,962 compared to 223,060 the prior week. Spain saw a small decline from 143,154 new cases the week ending November 8 to 129,759 new cases during the week ending November 15.

While there has been very encouraging news on the vaccine front from Pfizer/BioNTech and with likely similar good news expected from Moderna, broad distribution in the U.S. and Europe and other developed countries is still likely months away even if started in the next month or two. The requirement for extreme cold storage and transfer of the product will make global distribution even more challenging because of extra infrastructure/equipment needs. Thus, every country has an ongoing need to take the steps necessary to bring the pandemic under control without a vaccine.

In the United States where the current Administration has focused its efforts on expediting development of new vaccines and therapeutics, the failure to provide national leadership on controlling the pandemic and the continual issuance of misinformation has unfortunately politicized much of the health care preventive efforts needed by individuals and communities. The Administration’s current refusal to recognize the results of the recent elections and failure to accord the President-elect’s team access to agencies will complicate the process of the incoming Administration being able to implement a more comprehensive and consistent response to the pandemic to assist the states. Thus, the current crisis will certainly just get worse in the coming months. Projections now are that the U.S. will suffer an additional 200,000 deaths in the next four-five months. Many of those deaths are preventable but will happen because of our inability to focus on and accept the scientific facts and known action steps to control the spread. Remarkably a recent poll suggested that a large percent of the U.S. population believes the U.S. response to COVID-19 has been well handled. Thus, a wealthy developed country with 4.3% of the global population is apparently doing well by having roughly 20% of cases and 20% of deaths.

The rebound economically of European and U.S. economies during the third quarter after the steep decline in the second quarter following largescale closures will be negatively affected by the fourth quarter surge in cases and needed renewed restrictions in both areas. Such restrictions will negatively affect not only domestic economies but global trade as well in both goods and services. Even for areas of the world where the COVID-19 pandemic has not had tremendous direct effects, there have been negative effects because of the contraction of trade in goods and services as reviewed in a recent WTO Secretariat paper. See WTO, Trade and Development, November 11, 2020, Least developed countries hit hard by trade downturn triggered by COVID-19 pandemic, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/devel_11nov20_e.htm; Sub-Committee on Least Developed Countries, MARKET ACCESS FOR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF EXPORT INTEREST TO LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
NOTE BY THE SECRETARIAT1, WT/COMTD/LDC/W/68, 23 October 2020.

The likely approach of more tailored restrictions being imposed by countries or states/provinces hopefully will mean a smaller negative economic effect from the current surge in cases. However, in the U.S., Congress and the Administration have been unable to agree to renewed stimulus measures and past stimulus packages have come to an end. There are more than 20 million Americans who have been receiving some form of unemployment assistance where assistance has or is ending. Millions of renters and home owners face potential evictions or foreclosures on homes because of non payment of rent or mortgages. The continued failure of the federal government to address these ongoing needs will depress the U.S. economy going forward and will cause major problems for millions of families — making the future months different than the U.S. economic response to the earlier surges.

The bottom line — the global challenges from the pandemic are growing and not receding.

U.S. becomes first country to exceed 100,000 new COVID-19 cases/day for a fourteen day period

· November 10, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , · No Comments

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage out of control in the United States and other parts of the world, the U.S. added another “first” to its sad handling of the pandemic. According to data from the European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control, for the fourteen day period ending November 10, 2020, the United States had recorded 1,406,028 new cases in the last fourteen days — more than 100,000/day. No other country has ever recorded this level of new cases in a fourteen day period. So a brief summary of “firsts” for the United States follows — the U.S. has recorded the most deaths since the beginning of the pandemic of any country; the U.S. has recorded the most new cases since the beginning of the pandemic; the U.S. has recorded the most new cases in any given day; and now, the U.S. has recorded the most cases in a fourteen day period.

In addition, hospitalizations in the U.S. are back where they were at the initial peak in the spring (around 60,000 but still increasing) and deaths are mounting again, topping 1,000 for a number of days in a row.

In an environment in which the Trump Administration appears to be simply waiting for vaccines and therapeutics to become available but not pushing other measures, President-elect Biden announced a coronavirus task force yesterday and outlined his plan for addressing the pandemic in the U.S. after he takes office on January 20. He also asked U.S. citizens to follow the science by wearing masks, social distancing, limiting gatherings and more. The governor of Utah, faced with challenges in Utah’s hospitals issued a statewide mask mandate. With the problems facing most states continuing to escalate, it is likely that more state-level actions will occur in the coming days.

Pfizer’s announcement that preliminary results from its third round testing of its vaccine showed greater than 90% effectiveness is obviously encouraging. It is understood that Moderna’s vaccine in trial is based on a similar approach to Pfizer’s. And there are many other vaccines in stage three trials. So we are likely very close to approval of one or more vaccines with significant availability increasing as 2021 proceeds. However, the U.S., Europe and certain other parts of the world are in for a deadly fall and winter.

New COVID-19 cases over a fourteen day period continue to soar from five million on October 22 to six million on October 30 to seven million on November 7

· November 7, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · One Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spiral out of control with the vast majority of the new cases in Europe and the United States as the following graph taken from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s COVID-19 situation update world wide, as of 7 November 2020 shows.

Distribution of COVID-19 cases worldwide, as of 7 November 2020

Distribution of COVID-19 cases worldwide, as of 7 November 2020

More specifically, in the last sixteen days, the number of new COVID-19 cases globally over the last fourteen days has shot from five million to over seven million — a near forty percent increase in a little over two weeks. The total new cases identified since late December 2019 globally are just under 50 million (49.37 million) as of November 7.

On October 22, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recorded the first day where the number of new COVID-19 cases over a fourteen day period globally surpassed five million (5,042,415). In just eight days, on October 30, the ECDC reports the fourteen day total shooting past six million new cases (6,093,987), an increase of 1,051,572 or 20.85% in eight days. Today’s report (November 7) shows the total new cases in the last fourteen days crossing the seven million mark — 7,044,267 — or 15.59% over October 30 and 39.70% over October 22. As reviewed in two prior posts (October 22 and October 30), the U.S. and Europe were major factors in hitting five million and six daily cases and today’s data show them to continue to be the major causes of the continued rapid escalation in global cases. See October 22, 2020, COVID-19 new cases over last 14 days pass 5,000,000 for first time on October 22, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/22/covid-19-new-cases-over-last-14-days-pass-5000000-for-first-time-on-october-22/; October 30, 2020,  In last eight days, the number of global new COVID-19 cases over past fourteen days has grown from five to six million, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/30/in-last-eight-days-the-number-of-global-new-covid-19-cases-over-past-fourteen-days-has-grown-from-five-to-six-million/.

The table below shows the fourteen day totals for selected countries as of October 22, October 30 and November 7 and the change in new cases from October 22 – November 7. These twenty countries show an increase in sixteen days of 2,009,689 new cases over the fourteen day periods examined or more than the global total increase of 2,001,852 new cases over the same sixteen days The 20 countries accounted for 2,558,802 new cases for the fourteen days ending October 22 or 50.75% of the global total at that time. For the fourteen days ending October 30, the 20 countries accounted for 3,584,674 new cases or 58.82% of the global total. Finally, for the fourteen days ending November 7, the 20 countries accounted for 4,568,491 new cases or 64.85% of the global total.

Country10-22-202010-30-202011-7-2020Change
United States786,488966,2691,245,876459,388
France303,912473,085620,778316,866
United Kingdom244,954291,718315,48670,532
Spain169,394238,709282,700113,306
Italy115,708234,993377,812262,104
Russia198,716227,530252,79454,078
Belgium100,119171,522152,66352,544
Poland95,260169,302265,447170,187
Czechia113,555161,058165,17451,619
Germany81,905151,137224,483142,578
Netherlands103,024126,543125,16322,139
Ukraine76,48989,178109,79233,303
Switzerland35,26173,418107,83772,576
Romania48,53260,55086,03037,498
Hungary18,16628,38848,84530,679
Austria19,38735,43661,82342,436
Bulgaria10,59220,64335,66525,073
Slovakia18,91327,50333,17714,264
Slovenia8,85920,02123,34514,486
Sweden9,56817,67133,60124,033
Total2,558,8023,584,6744,568,4912,009,689

While the United States has the largest absolute increase in the last eight days for a single country, the vast majority of the increase flows from countries within the European Union. With the exception of the United States, the rest of the countries in the chart are from Europe, most from the EU.

It is little wonder, then, that the EU, the UK and Switzerland, with dramatic growth in the number of new cases, are imposing renewed restrictions at least in many countries and facing backlash from citizens suffering COVID-19 exhaustion. See, e.g., Politico, November 1, 2020, Europe is living a coronavirus flashback plus a backlash, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-is-living-a-coronavirus-flashback-plus-a-backlash/. While health care is handled by the individual countries within the the EU, the EU has been advocating better coordination and maintaining trade flows within the Community as countries come to grips with the current wave. See, e.g., Politico, October 30, 2020, EU leaders link arms for long fight against virus, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-link-arms-for-long-fight-against-virus/.

In the United States, the number of new cases is spiking again, with new cases now more than 100,000/day in recent days and the fourteen day total new cases of 1,245,876 is more than 20% higher than was recorded on November 1 — the first day where a fourteen day total of new cases in teh U.S. topped one million. See November 1, 2020, United States becomes second country to have more than 1,000,000 new COVID-19 cases in fourteen days, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/11/01/united-states-becomes-second-country-to-have-more-than-1000000-new-covid-19-cases-in-fourteen-days/. With most attention in the U.S. focused on the election results, the COVID-19 situation is receiving relatively limited press attention and no change in federal government response.

Other parts of the world are not experiencing a second wave to the same extent, although much of the Americas remain at very high levels of new cases. Some major countries who have been seriously hit in recent months are seeing substantial reductions in new cases. India is the leading example — on October 22, the last 14 days showed 871,291 new cases; on October 30, for the last 14 days new cases were down to 718,383, and were down to 647,398 for the 14 days ending on November 7.

Conclusion

The top priority for many countries around the world is getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The costs in terms of human life and serious health problems are enormous. So too the costs to the global economy from taking the steps necessary to address the pandemic are enormous. For example, the European Union recently reduced its projected economic growth in 2021 because of the second wave of COVID-19 cases. See Politico, November 5, 2020, EU cuts economic forecast due to coronavirus wave, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-cuts-economic-forecast-due-to-coronavirus-wave/ (2021 forecast cut from 6.1% growth to 4.2% growth).

How to address the pandemic and how to work internationally to secure a return to normalcy and a return to sustainable economic growth are the challenges for all governments and international organizations, including the WTO, WHO, IMF, World Bank and many others. Recent IMF regional economic outlooks show varied projections for economic growth for different parts of the world and major challenges for areas like Sub-Saharan Africa. See, e.g., IMF Press Release, October 22, 2020, Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa, a difficult road to recovery, https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/10/21/pr20319-sub-saharan-africa-a-difficult-road-to-recovery.

The fact that the number of new cases is continuing to surge globally ten months after the start of global surveillance is obviously troubling and delays the return to normalcy. While some individual countries have gained control of the pandemic and others are making significant strides to reduce the number of new cases, “no one is safe until all are safe”. We have a long road to travel, and the western developed world is currently the major hot spot, struggling with the current extraordinary surge. We still are not in sight of a global peak and the rest of 2020 is likely to continue to stress global capabilities.

WTO reports a 30% decline in commercial services trade in 2nd quarter of 2020 — travel challenges through September will continue to put downward pressure on commercial services trade

· November 4, 2020 · commercial services, COVID-19, travel and tourism · , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

A press release from the WTO on October 23, 2020 was headlined “Services trade drops 30% in Q2 as COVID-19 ravages international travel.” https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/serv_22oct20_e.htm. One of the charts in the press release shows travel down 81% in the second quarter of 2020, with transport down 31% and all other commercial services down 9%. Within other services, construction exports were down 24%; manufacturing and repair services exports were down 22%; telecommunications services exports were down 8%; insurance services exports were down 3%; financial services exports were down 1%; and computer services exports up 4%, with remaining categories of services exports down 9-14%.

The press release contained a link to monthly trade trends through August which looked at both imports and exports of merchandise and of commercial services. See WTO statistics, latest trends, https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/latest_trends_e.htm. Commercial services were presented at an aggregate level and showed percent change for months on a year-on-year basis. For the European Union commercial services exports outside of the EU, the rate of decline from 2019 data declined 29% in May 2020, 22% in June, 21% in July and 20% in August. For the United States, exports of commercial services declined by 31% in May, 30% in June, 29% in July and 29% in August. China’s exports of commercial services went from a decline of 6% in May to a decline of 5% in June, and a !% growth in July and a 6% growth in August. The United Kingdom showed a decline of 27% in commercial exports in May, an 11% decline in June, a 9% decline in July and a 1% increase in August. India showed declines in each of the four months from May-August of 10%, 8%, 11% and 10%. Similarly, Japan showed declines each month in the four months from 24% in May, 23% in June, 35% in July and 36% in August. Korea was the last country shown and had declines each month of 30%, 24%, 27% and 26%.

Travel continues to be the major driver of the decline in commercial services into the third quarter, with the UNWTO reporting in its World Tourism Barometer (Volume 18, Issue 6, October 2020) that international arrivals declined 81% in July and 79% in August compared to year earlier figures. For the first eight months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, international arrivals are down 70.1%, with Asia and the Pacific down 78.8%, Europe down 67.7%, the Americas down 64.8%, Africa down 69.% nd the Middle East down 68.7. UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, Volume 18, Issue 6, October 2020, https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/epdf/10.18111/wtobarometereng.2020.18.1.6.

While travel restrictions through August had been being reduced in a number of countries, the huge increase in Europe of new COVID-19 cases in October and early November has resulted in increased restrictions in a number of European countries and will likely mean extended challenges for international travel to and from Europe, as well as cut backs in domestic travel for the remainder of 2020.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) puts out various publications including an Air Passenger Market Analysis. The September issue shows that revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) were down 88.8% in September 2020 for international air travel, bringing the January-September decline to 72.3%. Domestic air travel by contrast was down, but “just” 43.3% in September (51.2% for January – September). Thus, the total market (international and domestic) was down 72.8% in September and 64.7% for the first nine months of 2020. IATA, Air Passenger Market Analysis, The recovery in passenger travel slows amid elevated risks, September 2020, https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-passenger-monthly-analysis—september-2020/.

While the travel sector encompasses far more than air travel, the challenges facing the airline industry are similar to challenges faced by other parts of the sector, although other parts of the sector are often far more fragmented (restaurants, bars, hotels, entertainment venues) and without the resources to survive the prolonged depression in demand due to the pandemic.

IATA provided a powerpoint analysis by their Chief Economist, Brian Pearce, on the 6th of October 2020, entitled “COVID-19, Outlook for airlines’ cash burn,” https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/outlook-for-airlines-cash-burn/. The powerpoint reviews the steep reduction in stock prices for airlines compared to other stocks, outlines the extraordinary level of aid the industry has received from governments ($160 billion) and suppliers ($20 billion), shows the timing when government support is ending, graphs the slow recovery in passenger revenues, and explores the challenge for the airlines to downsize costs sufficiently to deal with the drastic contraction in revenues, and shows an industry cash burn (expenditures exceeding revenues) of $51 billion in the 2nd quarter of 2020 and a projected further cash burn of $77 billion in the second half of 2021. The presentation also shows that many airlines can’t sustain for long the cash burn and ends on the sobering note that airlines are not expected to turn cash positive until 2022.

Press reports show challenges for airlines in many parts of the world. See, e.g., South China Morning Post (Bloomberg article), November 3, 2020, Asia airlines seen staving off pandemic ruin for now as troubles head West, https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3108066/asia-airlines-seen-staving-pandemic-ruin-now-financial-troubles-head-west; BBC, November 3, 2020, Covid threatens to ground India’s aviation industry, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54729074.

The U.S. has seen tens of thousands of airline employees furloughed or dismissed since October 1st as government support came to an end in September, and Congress and the Administration have not been able to agree on a further package of supports for the industry or the nation more broadly as the pandemic continues to grow in size in the U.S. The surge in new cases in the United States is also resulting in various states imposing restrictions on bars and restaurants, and the hotel and entertainment industries continue to be severely affected by declines in demand.

Similarly, much of Europe has been reimposing at least some restrictions that affect the travel sector in an effort to regain control over the pandemic.

All of the above is simply to point out that the decline in commercial services trade reported by the WTO last month for the second quarter of 2020 is likely to continue through the remainder of 2020, led by the devastating contraction of the travel sector.

India and South Africa Seek Waiver from WTO Intellectual Property Obligations to Address COVID-19 — Issues Presented

· November 2, 2020 · COVID-19, TRIPS waiver proposal from India and South Africa · , , , , , , · No Comments

India and South Africa submitted a communication to the WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights entitled “Waiver from Certain Provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the Prevention,
Containment and Treatment of COVID-19.” IP/C/W/699 (October 2, 2020). The document and correction are embedded below.

W669

W669C1

The waiver request was made part of the agenda of the Council for TRIPS agenda for its meeting on October 15-16. The WTO Secretariat provided a short press release on the TRIPS Council meeting. The discussion on the waiver proposal is quoted below.

“Some 40 members engaged in a substantive discussion on a proposal submitted by India and South Africa for a temporary waiver of certain TRIPS obligations they said would facilitate an appropriate response to COVID-19. The proposal suggests a waiver for all WTO members on the implementation, application and enforcement of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to the “prevention, containment or treatment” of COVID-19. The proponents argued this would avoid barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and
medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of essential medical products.

“The waiver would cover obligations in four sections of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement (https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm) — Section 1 on copyright and related rights, Section 4 on industrial designs, Section 5 on patents and Section 7 on the protection of undisclosed information. It would last for a specific number of years, as agreed by the General Council, and until widespread vaccination is in place globally and the majority of the world’s population is immune. Members would review the waiver annually until its termination.

“According to the proponents, an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic requires rapid access to affordable medical products such as diagnostic kits, medical masks, other personal protective equipment and ventilators as well as vaccines and medicines. The outbreak has led to a swift increase in global demand, with many countries facing shortages, constraining the ability to effectively respond to the outbreak. As new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19 are developed, there were significant concerns about how these will be made available
promptly in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices to meet global demand.

“The proponents argued that many countries — especially developing countries — may face institutional and legal difficulties when using TRIPS flexibilities, including the special compulsory licensing mechanism provided for in Article 31bis (https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/ai17_e/trips_art31_bis_oth.pdf), which they saw as a cumbersome process for the import and export of pharmaceutical products. Now was the time for the WTO as an organization to rise up to the collective call for defeating the pandemic. The WTO would not succeed in its efforts to rebuild the COVID-19 affected economies unless it acts now to first save those lives that are going to build these economies. It is time for members to take collective responsibility and put people’s lives before anything else, they concluded.

“While a number of developing and least developed country members welcomed the proposal as a contribution to the discussion, many were still studying it in their capitals and asked for clarification on certain points, particularly regarding its practical implementation and the possible economic and legal impact of the waiver at national level. A number of developing and developed country members opposed the waiver proposal, noting that there is no indication that intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been a genuine barrier to accessing COVID-19 related medicines and technologies.

“While acknowledging that the sustained and continued supply of such medicines and technologies is a difficult task, they observed that non-efficient and underfunded health care and procurement systems, spiking demand and lack of manufacturing capacity are much more likely to impede access to these materials. In the view of these members, solutions can be legitimately sought within the existing IP system as the TRIPS Agreement provides enough tools and sufficient policy space for members to take measures to protect public health. The suspension of IPRs,
even for a limited period of time, was not only unnecessary but it would also undermine the collaborative efforts to fight the pandemic that are already under way.

“Given this range of positions, the Council chair, Ambassador Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter of South Africa, said that the item would remain suspended as members continue to consider the proposal. Requests for waivers concerning WTO agreements must be submitted initially to the relevant council for consideration. After 90 days, the TRIPS Council has to submit a report to the Ministerial Conference. Given that the proposal was submitted on 2 October, the 90-day time-period expires on 31 December 2020. The TRIPS Council meeting will be reconvened on the item of the waiver proposal as appropriate before that date, the chair said.”

WTO, 20 October 2020, Members discuss intellectual property response to the COVID-19 pandemic, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/trip_20oct20_e.htm.

Waiver provisions in the WTO

Article IX:3 and 4 of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trde Organization deal with waivers from obligations WTO Members have assumed.

“Article IX

“Decision-Making

” * * *

“3.   In exceptional circumstances, the Ministerial Conference may decide to waive an obligation imposed on a Member by this Agreement or any of the Multilateral Trade Agreements, provided that any such decision shall be taken by three fourths of the Members unless otherwise provided for in this paragraph.

“(a)    A request for a waiver concerning this Agreement shall be submitted to the Ministerial Conference for consideration pursuant to the practice of decision-making by consensus. The Ministerial Conference shall establish a time-period, which shall not exceed 90 days, to consider the request. If consensus is not reached during the time-period, any decision to grant a waiver shall be taken by three fourths of the Members.
 

“(b)    A request for a waiver concerning the Multilateral Trade Agreements in Annexes 1A or 1B or 1C and their annexes shall be submitted initially to the Council for Trade in Goods, the Council for Trade in Services or the Council for TRIPS, respectively, for consideration during a time-period which shall not exceed 90 days. At the end of the time-period, the relevant Council shall submit a report to the Ministerial Conference.

“4.   A decision by the Ministerial Conference granting a waiver shall state the exceptional circumstances justifying the decision, the terms and conditions governing the application of the waiver, and the date on which the waiver shall terminate. Any waiver granted for a period of more than one year shall be reviewed by the Ministerial Conference not later than one year after it is granted, and thereafter annually until the waiver terminates. In each review, the Ministerial Conference shall examine whether the exceptional circumstances justifying the waiver still exist and whether the terms and conditions attached to the waiver have been met. The Ministerial Conference, on the basis of the annual review, may extend, modify or terminate the waiver.”

Some questions from the waiver proposal

The waiver proposal put forward by India and South Africa is extraordinarily broad – covering all WTO Members for a broad range of products not clearly delineated, with the waiver of a broad array of TRIPS obligations without a demonstration of the relevance of the requests for some (e.g., copyright) for a potentially lengthy period of time.

The proposal raises a series of questions that should be addressed to understand whether the waiver is appropriate. These questions include whether such a broad waiver request is appropriate or envisioned by Article IX:3 and 4 of the Marrakesh Agreement? Shouldn’t those requesting a waiver be required to demonstrate that the existing flexibilities within the TRIPS Agreement are inadequate to address concerns they may have? Can two Members request a waiver of obligations for all WTO Members? Can a waiver request be considered where the product scope is lacking clarity, and the uses/needs of the waiver are very broad and potentially open to differing views? To what extent is there a need for those seeking a waiver to present a factual record of actions being taken by governments, companies and international organizations to provide access to medical goods during the pandemic including to developing and least developed countries? Shouldn’t those seeking a waiver identify the extent of existing licenses by major pharmaceutical companies with them or other WTO Members for the production of vaccines or therapeutics to address COVID-19?

Historical usage of waivers have not been as broad as that requested by India and South Africa

Waivers are exceptional by their nature and Article IX:3 talks in terms of a waiver of some obligation for a particular Member, not the waiver of many parts of an agreement for all members. When one looks at waivers granted previously by the WTO, one sees a range of topics — many relate to time for Members to implement changes from updates of the harmonized tariff systems (for individual countries who sought the temporary waiver), some pertain to preferential arrangements between one Member and another or a group of Members and some pertain to waiver of deadlines or specific obligations for least developed countries. Two documents prepared by the WTO Secretariat show waivers granted or continuing in existence in 2019 and all waivers between 1995 AND 2015. The two documents are embedded below.

W795

W718

Thus, the present request for a waiver by India and South Africa doesn’t seem to comply with the literal terms of Article IX:3 of the Marrakesh Agreement or with the much more narrow scope of waivers typically considered. As reviewed above, the request would apply to all members, not just India and South Africa. The request also seems overly broad both in terms of products (not clearly defined), uses and provisions to be waived.

Existing flexibilities within the TRIPs Agreement

Because of the importance to all WTO Members of the health of their citizens, there has been a lot of focus and discussion within the WTO on the interface between intellectual property and public health. Under the original TRIPs Agreement and the subsequent amendment to the Agreement in 2005 that took effect as Article 31bis to the TRIPs Agreement in 2017, there is flexibility within the TRIPs Agreement for Members to deal with health emergencies including through compulsory licensing which can include the right to manufacture and export to developing and least developed countries who don’t have pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in-country. See TRIPs Agreement Article 31, Article 31bis and WT/L/641. The current language of Articles 31 and 31bis from the patent portion of the TRIPS Agreement are presented below.

“Article 31 Other Use Without Authorization of the Right Holder

“Where the law of a Member allows for other use (7) of the subject matter of a patent without the authorization of the right holder, including use by the government or third parties authorized by the government, the following provisions shall be respected:

“(a)  authorization of such use shall be considered on its individual merits;
 

“(b)  such use may only be permitted if, prior to such use, the proposed user has made efforts to obtain authorization from the right holder on reasonable commercial terms and conditions and that such efforts have not been successful within a reasonable period of time. This requirement may be waived by a Member in the case of a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency or in cases of public non-commercial use. In situations of national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, the right holder shall, nevertheless, be notified as soon as reasonably practicable. In the case of public non-commercial use, where the government or contractor, without making a patent search, knows or has demonstrable grounds to know that a valid patent is or will be used by or for the government, the right holder shall be informed promptly;
 

“(c)  the scope and duration of such use shall be limited to the purpose for which it was authorized, and in the case of semi-conductor technology shall only be for public non-commercial use or to remedy a practice determined after judicial or administrative process to be anti-competitive;
 

“(d)  such use shall be non-exclusive;
 

“(e)  such use shall be non-assignable, except with that part of the enterprise or goodwill which enjoys such use;
 

“(f)  any such use shall be authorized predominantly for the supply of the domestic market of the Member authorizing such use;
 

 “(g)  authorization for such use shall be liable, subject to adequate protection of the legitimate interests of the persons so authorized, to be terminated if and when the circumstances which led to it cease to exist and are unlikely to recur. The competent authority shall have the authority to review, upon motivated request, the continued existence of these circumstances;
 

“(h)  the right holder shall be paid adequate remuneration in the circumstances of each case, taking into account the economic value of the authorization;
 

“(i)  the legal validity of any decision relating to the authorization of such use shall be subject to judicial review or other independent review by a distinct higher authority in that Member;
 

“(j)  any decision relating to the remuneration provided in respect of such use shall be subject to judicial review or other independent review by a distinct higher authority in that Member;
 

“(k)  Members are not obliged to apply the conditions set forth in subparagraphs (b) and (f) where such use is permitted to remedy a practice determined after judicial or administrative process to be anti-competitive. The need to correct anti-competitive practices may be taken into account in determining the amount of remuneration in such cases. Competent authorities shall have the authority to refuse termination of authorization if and when the conditions which led to such authorization are likely to recur;
 

“(l)  where such use is authorized to permit the exploitation of a patent (“the second patent”) which cannot be exploited without infringing another patent (“the first patent”), the following additional conditions shall apply:
 

“(i)  the invention claimed in the second patent shall involve an important technical advance of considerable economic significance in relation to the invention claimed in the first patent;
 

“(ii) the owner of the first patent shall be entitled to a cross-licence on reasonable terms to use the invention claimed in the second patent; and
 

“(iii)  the use authorized in respect of the first patent shall be non-assignable except with the assignment of the second patent.

“Article 31bis

“1. The obligations of an exporting Member under Article 31(f) shall not apply with respect to the grant by it of a compulsory licence to the extent necessary for the purposes of production of a pharmaceutical product(s) and its export to an eligible importing Member(s) in accordance with the terms set out in paragraph 2 of the Annex to this Agreement.

“2. Where a compulsory licence is granted by an exporting Member under the system set out in this Article and the Annex to this Agreement, adequate remuneration pursuant to Article 31(h) shall be paid in that Member taking into account the economic value to the importing Member of the use that has been authorized in the exporting Member. Where a compulsory licence is granted for the same products in the eligible importing Member, the obligation of that Member under Article 31(h) shall not apply in respect of those products for which remuneration in accordance with the first sentence of this paragraph is paid in the exporting Member.

“3. With a view to harnessing economies of scale for the purposes of enhancing purchasing power for, and facilitating the local production of, pharmaceutical products: where a developing or least developed country WTO Member is a party to a regional trade agreement within the meaning of Article XXIV of the GATT 1994 and the Decision of 28 November 1979 on Differential and More Favourable Treatment Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries (L/4903), at least half of the current membership of which is made up of countries presently on the United Nations list of least developed countries, the obligation of that Member under Article 31(f) shall not apply to the extent necessary to enable a pharmaceutical product produced or imported under a compulsory licence in that Member to be exported to the markets of those other developing or least developed country parties to the regional trade agreement that share the health problem in question. It is understood that this will not prejudice the territorial nature of the patent rights in question.

“4. Members shall not challenge any measures taken in conformity with the provisions of this Article and the Annex to this Agreement under subparagraphs 1(b) and 1(c) of Article XXIII of GATT 1994.

“5. This Article and the Annex to this Agreement are without prejudice to the rights, obligations and flexibilities that Members have under the provisions of this Agreement other than paragraphs (f) and (h) of Article 31, including those reaffirmed by the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (WT/MIN(01)/DEC/2), and to their interpretation. They are also without prejudice to the extent to which pharmaceutical products produced under a compulsory licence can be exported under the provisions of Article 31(f).”

The WTO Secretariat has a page on its website that discusses intellectual property and the public interest, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_and_public_interest_e.htm, which reviews both flexibilities for Members in addressing public interest needs as well as current topics being discussed within the TRIPS Council. There also have been publications by the WTO Secretariat, WIPO and WHO on flexibilities in accessing medical technologies. See, e.g., WTO, WIPO and WHO, Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation, SECOND EDITION, https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/who-wipo-wto_2020_e.pdf. And on October 21, 2020 the WTO held a technical workshop on health, trade and intellectual property in addressing COVID-19. See 21 October 2020, WTO workshop on health, trade and intellectual property: an integrated approach to COVID-19; https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/heal_21oct20_e.htm. There is a lengthy combined powerpoint presentation available from the webpage which was used in the workshop.

Thus, there can be no doubt that the WTO TRIPS Agreement provides significant flexibilities to Members to address health emergencies. The waiver proposal from India and South Africa doesn’t review any actual efforts to utilize the flexibilities but just opines that Members won’t be able to effectively utilize them. Such an approach should not be acceptable for such far reaching requests as the proposal from India and South Africa.

Ongoing efforts by governments, companies and organizations to make medical goods available to developing and least developed countries

Strangely missing from the waiver request submitted by India and South Africa is any mention of the global efforts underway to ensure access to medical goods and vaccines and therapeutics as approved.

There have been various fund raising efforts in 2020 to provide the necessary wherewithal to organizations focused on developing vaccines for global distribution or focused on the distribution of medical goods, vaccines and therapeutics globally.

CEPI and GAVI in coordination with the WHO have extensive efforts underway, including access to large manufacturing capacity for approved vaccines within the pool of vaccines being developed and included in the CEPI portfolio.

In addition, some private companies involved in manufacturing vaccines under development have licensing arrangements with certain producers for distribution to developing and least developing countries. Some companies have made access to the drawings of their medical equipment available to any company wishing to produce the equipment.

Thus, it is hard to understand a need for a broad waiver when there is considerable international cooperation and substantial vaccine capacity available for some of the vaccines in late stage testing. The WTO membership deserves to have a full compilation of developments and existing actions to facilitate access to medical supplies for developing and least developed countries. The India and South Africa waiver proposal provides none of the relevant information.

While it is not the purpose of this post to develop the full factual record, I provide below some links which supply some information on ongoing developments. See The Guardian, October 20, 2020, India at heart of global efforts to produce Covid vaccine, Country plays central role in development, manufacture, and possible distribution of potential vaccines, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/20/india-at-heart-of-global-efforts-to-produce-covid-vaccine (“A deal has already been struck for the Serum Institute of India, based in the city of Pune, to produce 1bn doses of the the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, seen as the forerunner in the vaccine race.” “Johnson and Johnson, whose Covid-19 vaccine is also in phase 3 clinical trials, has struck a deal with the Indian pharmaceutical company Biological E to produce up to 500m doses if successful.” “Bharat Biotech, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company, has a deal to manufacture 1bn doses of Washington University’s intranasal vaccine, now in clinical trials, and Indian pharmaceutical giant Dr Reddy’s has a deal to do a phase 2/3 human trials in India of Russia’s controversial Sputnik vaccine and then produce 100m doses. There are also at least a dozen indigenous vaccines being developed within India. ” “Poonawalla of the Serum Institute said that ‘50% of whatever quantity we manufacture will be kept for India and the remaining will go to low- and middle-income countries.'”).

GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, October 15, 2020, COVID-19 SITUATION REPORT #19, https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/Gavi-COVID-19-Situation-Report-19-20201015.pdf (“COVAX is the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, co-led by Gavi, the Coalition
for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO. Gavi is coordinating the development and implementation of the COVAX Facility, the global procurement mechanism of COVAX. The COVAX Facility will make investments across a broad portfolio of promising vaccine candidates (including those being supported by CEPI) to make sure at-risk investment in manufacturing happens now. Gavi is also coordinating the development and implementation of the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), the financing instrument that will support the participation of 92 low- and middle-income countries and economies in the COVAX Facility.
The goals of the COVAX Facility and AMC include:
“❖ to support the largest actively managed portfolio of vaccine candidates globally
“❖ to deliver 2 billion doses by the end of 2021
“❖ to offer a compelling return on investment by delivering COVID-19 vaccines as quickly as possible
“❖ to guarantee fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all participants
“❖ to end the acute phase of the pandemic by the end of 2021”).

CEPI, October 21, 2020, CEPI expands global manufacturing network, reserving manufacturing capacity for more than 1billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/cepi-expands-global-manufacturing-network-reserving-manufacturing-capacity-over-1-billion-doses (“CEPI signs agreements with Biofabri (Spain) and GC Pharma (Republic of Korea) to reserve vaccine manufacturing capacity for more than 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines designated by CEPI.
CEPI’s strategic investments in vaccine manufacturing at facilities around the world will support the COVAX goal to produce 2 billion doses of safe and effective vaccine by the end of 2021.”).

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic presents a global health crisis. In response to the crisis there have been activities within the WTO to minimize restrictions on the movement of medical goods and a workshop looking at the interface of trade, intellectual property and public health to help Members address internal needs. The TRIPS Agreement has various flexibilities to permit Members to address health challenges. At the same time there have been extraordinary efforts by many governments, companies and international organizations to cooperate both to develop vaccines and therapeutics but also to speed up manufacturing and work towards equitable distribution of medical goods. Leading pharmaceutical companies have already entered into licensing arrangements to provide billions of doses of vaccines when approved to developing and least developing countries. GAVI and CEPI in coordination with the WHO are working on supporting various vaccine development, securing manufacturing capacity and raising funds to permit broad distribution of vaccines and other products to countries in need and others who have contributed to the group effort.

So factually, it is hard to understand the waiver request filed by India and South Africa. Against a backdrop of how waivers have been used in the past and the lack of a demonstration that existing flexibilities won’t provide acceptable answers, the waiver proposal also is deficient in terms of legal justification. The proposal is not justified, is too broad both in terms of product coverage, Members who would be given waivers, and the range of
TRIPS provisions that would be waived for some number of years.

These are serious problems with a proposal that requires TRIPS Council action and referral to the General Council by the end of the year. Thus, the TRIPS Council should recommend against acceptance of the waiver proposal put forward by India and South Africa.


United States becomes second country to have more than 1,000,000 new COVID-19 cases in fourteen days

· November 1, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , · No Comments

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) daily report, “COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 1 November 2020,” shows the number of new cases in the United States surpassing one million for the fourteen days October 19 – November 1. The 1,019,609 new cases reported by the United States for these fourteen days is the first time the United States has surpassed one million in a fourteen day period according to the daily reports from the ECDC. The United States is only the second country to have more than one million new cases in fourteen days, India being the first. India is now past peak, with the number of new cases declining significantly in recent weeks. The October 19-November 1 totals for the United States are 40.77% higher than the number of new cases in the fourteen day period, October 5-18. The huge growth in new cases in the United States is expected to continue in the coming weeks. The U.S. and Europe are accounting for all of the growth in global new cases in recent weeks. See October 30, 2020, In last eight days, the number of global new COVID-19 cases over past fourteen days has grown from five to six million, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/30/in-last-eight-days-the-number-of-global-new-covid-19-cases-over-past-fourteen-days-has-grown-from-five-to-six-million/.

The United States has the most cases since data for COVID-19 has been being collected (end of 2019), with 9,126,361 total COVID-19 cases or 19.77% of the global total of 46,156,540, even though the U.S. has just 4.3% of the world’s population. Similarly, the United States has recorded the most deaths from COVID-19, 230,556 or 19.27% of the 1,196,272 deaths recorded by all countries around the world.

In last eight days, the number of global new COVID-19 cases over past fourteen days has grown from five to six million

· October 30, 2020 · COVID-19, Uncategorized · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

On October 22, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recorded the first day where the number of new COVID-19 cases globally surpassed five million (5,042,415). In just eight days, on October 30, the ECDC reports the fourteen day total shooting past six million new cases (6,093,987), an increase of 1,051,572 or 20.85% in eight days! As reviewed in a post on October 22, the U.S. and Europe were major factors in hitting five million and continue to be the major causes of the continued rapid escalation in global cases. See October 22, 2020, COVID-19 new cases over last 14 days pass 5,000,000 for first time on October 22, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/10/22/covid-19-new-cases-over-last-14-days-pass-5000000-for-first-time-on-october-22/.

The table below shows the fourteen day totals for selected countries as of October 22 and October 30 and the change in new cases. These twenty-one countries show an increase in eight days of 1,052,784 new cases or more than the global total. The 21 countries accounted for 2,756,890 new cases for the fourteen days ending October 22 or 54.67% of the global total at that time. For the fourteen days ending October 30, the 21 countries accounted for 3,809,674 new cases or 62.52% of the global total.

Country10-22-202010-30-2020Change
United States786,488966,269179,781
France303,912473,085169,173
Brazil298,078324,99026,912
United Kingdom244,954291,71846,764
Spain169,394238,70969,315
Italy115,708234,993119,285
Russia198,716227,53028,814
Belgium100,119171,52271,403
Poland95,260169,30274,042
Czechia113,555161,05847,503
Germany81,905151,13769,232
Netherlands103,024126,54323,519
Ukraine76,48989,17812,689
Switzerland35,26173,41838,157
Romania48,53260,55012,018
Hungary18,16628,38810,222
Austria19,38735,43616,049
Bulgaria10,59220,64310,051
Slovakia18,91327,5038,590
Slovenia8,85920,02111,162
Sweden9,56817,6718,103

While the United States has the largest absolute increase in the last eight days for a single country, the vast majority of the increase flows from countries within the European Union. With the exception of Brazil and the United States, the rest of the countries in the chart are from Europe, most from the EU.

It is little wonder, then, that the EU and the UK, with dramatic growth in the number of new cases, are imposing renewed restrictions at least in many countries. While health care is handled by the individual countries within the the EU, the EU has been advocating better coordination and maintaining trade flows within the Community as countries come to grips with the current wave. See, e.g., Politico, October 30, 2020, EU leaders link arms for long fight against virus, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-link-arms-for-long-fight-against-virus/.

In the United States, the number of new cases is spiking again, with a new record recorded in the last day, with over 91,000 new cases and with predictions of new cases topping 100,000 each day in the next week or so.

Other parts of the world are not experiencing a second wave to the same extent, although much of the Americas remain at very high levels of new cases. Some major countries who have been seriously hit in recent months are seeing substantial reductions in new cases. India is the leading example — on October 22, the last 14 days showed 871,291 new cases; on October 30, for the last 14 days new cases were down to 718,383.

Conclusion

The top priority for many countries around the world is getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The costs in terms of human life and serious health problems are enormous. So too the costs to the global economy from taking the steps necessary to address the pandemic are enormous. How to address the pandemic and how to work internationally to secure a return to normalcy and a return to sustainable economic growth are the challenges for all governments and international organizations, including the WTO, WHO, IMF, World Bank and many others. The fact that the number of new cases is continuing to surge globally ten months after the start of global surveillance is obviously troubling and delays the return to normalcy. While some individual countries have gained control of the pandemic and others are making significant strides to reduce the number of new cases, “no one is safe until all are safe”. We have a long road to travel, and the western developed world is currently the major hot spot, struggling with the current extraordinary surge. We still are not in sight of a global peak and the rest of 2020 is likely to continue to stress global capabilities.

As November approaches, Europe and the United States facing rapidly growing new COVID-19 cases

· October 26, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

The number of new cases of COVID-19 reported globally skyrocketed during the October 12-25 period (5,431,119), up 24.37% from the September 28 – October 11 period (4,336,825). Data are from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control worldwide update series. Global confirmed cases to date are now 42,758,015.

The United States which has more confirmed cases (8,576,725) than any other nation and more confirmed deaths from COVID-19 (224,899), saw the number of new cases surge by 34.0% over the last two weeks with daily records set twice in the last week (both days over 80,000 new cases). The U.S. recorded the extraordinary number of 908,980 new cases during the fourteen day period July 20-August 2. That number declined to 740,721 during August 3-16 and further declined to 600,417 new cases in the August 17-30 period and was further reduced to 524,526 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The downtrend was reversed during September 14-27, when the number of new cases increased to 592,690 or a daily average of 42,335 cases. During September 28-October 11, the United States recorded 640,149 new cases (45,725/day). During October 12-25, the United States recorded 857,778 new cases and will likely surpass the prior two week peak in the next two weeks.

The United States regained the dubious distinction of recording the largest number of new cases in the last two weeks as India’s number of new cases continues to decline to 811,005 new cases from its peak of 1,238,176 new cases during the September 14-27 period. India is the only country to have recorded more than one million cases in a two week period. The United States appears likely to join India in the coming weeks.

Brazil (297,998 new cases) lost its hold on third place to France (367,624 new cases). Brazil’s new cases have been falling since July 20-August 2 (633,017 new cases) to 609,219 new cases during August 3-16, 529,057 new cases during August 17-30, 469,534 new cases during August 31-September 13, 402,304 new cases during September 14-27, 364,646 during September 28-October 11 and 297,998 new cases in October 12-25 (a decline of 52.92% since the end of July).

With the tremendous overall global growth and the declining volume of new cases in India and Brazil, the share of total new cases in the last fourteen days and since the end of December 2019 accounted for by India, Brazil and the United States declined to 36.21% in the most recent fourteen days from 47.31% in September 28-October 11. and from 54.33% during September 14-27 and down from 58.34% in the August 31-September 13 period. The three countries account for 51.04% of total cases since late December 2019 in the prior two weeks down from 53.25% of all cases confirmed since late December 2019 as of October 11.

The United States with 4.3% of global population has accounted for 20.06% of total confirmed cases since December 2019 — 4.67 times the share of total cases our population would justify. With the large increase in the most recent two weeks, the U.S. was 15.79% of the total new cases during the last two weeks (up from 14.66% during Sept. 28-October 11) or 3.67 times the U.S. share of global population. The U.S. also accounts for 19.53% of total deaths or 4.54 times the U.S. share of global population.

Changing pattern of growth in cases, Europe experiencing a spike in cases surpassing its first wave

Much of Europe is in a massive build-up of new cases, rivaling or exceeding the challenges faced during the March-April time period. This is resulting in reimposition of some restrictions by some European countries with a fair amount of pushback from citizens weary of the restrictions.

France has been hit hardest in terms of the number of new cases with the October 12-25 number of new cases reaching 367,624 up 92.04% from the 191,427 new cases in September 28-October 11 which was up from 153,535 in the September 14-27 period. The current number of new cases compares to the prior peak in the March 30-April 12 period of 56,215 new cases (or is 6.54 times the prior peak in the latest two week period).

The United Kingdom is similarly facing major challenges as the last two weeks saw new cases of 263,166 up 62.88% from the 161,567 new cases in September 28-October 11 which was more than twice the 64,103 new cases in September 14-27 and just 32,422 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The United Kingdom’s prior peak in the April 13-26 period was 69,386 new cases. So the most recent two weeks is at a level that is 3.79 times the prior peak.

Spain’s number of new COVID-19 cases rose to 185,020, an increase of 27.93% rom the September 28-Ocotber 11 period with 144,631 new cases. Spain’s peak in the spring had been in the period March 30-April 12 with 81,612 new cases. Thus, the last two weeks were 2.27 times the Spring peak number of new cases.

Italy’s last two weeks saw a breathtaking spike to 155,015 new cases, 3.74 times the number of new cases from the prior two week period September 28-October 11 when Italy recorded 41,390 new cases which was nearly double the number of cases in the September 14-27 period (21,807 new cases). Italy’s most recent two weeks was 2.59 times the prior peak for Italy in the Spring during the March 30-April 12 period of 59,799 new cases.

Czechia which spiked following summer vacations saw its number of new cases during October 12-25 surge to 136,790 up from 46,080 new cases in the September 28-October 11 period and 23,893 new cases in the September 14-27 period and 11,307 new cases in the August 31 – September 13 period. Czechia largely escaped the March-April wave in Europe. The data for the last eight weeks constitutes 86.95 percent of Czechia’s total recorded cases since December 2019.

Belgium surged to 133,439 new cases in the October 12-25 period more than tripling the 40,791 new cases recorded in the September 28-October 11 period which more than doubling the numbers from September 14-27 of 17,797.

Poland, which had largely escaped the Spring wave of infections, recorded 120,308 new cases in the latest two week period (Oct. 12-25) up from 35,658 new cases in the September 28-October 11 period.

The Netherlands nearly doubled its number of new cases in the October 12-25 period (112,649) compared to the number of new cases in the September 28-Ocotber 11period (59,561). The last two weeks constitute 40.13% of total cases the Netherlands has recorded since December 2019.

Germany’s new cases in the October 12-25 period surged to 106,317 from 38,724 new cases during the September 28-October 11 period. The Spring peak for Germany had been during the March 30-April 12 period (67,932 new cases).

The Russian Federation saw continued increases in the number of new cases during the October 12-25 period (228,793) up from 141,513 in the September 28-October 11 period which was up 86,209 new cases in the September 14-27 period. Russia’s earlier peak was during the May 11-24 period when Russia recorded 137,206 new cases.

Ukraine recorded 81,144 new cases during the October 11-25 period compared to 60,762 new cases in September 28-October 11, and 43,645 new cases in the September-27 period.

Many other European countries saw large increases as well in the last two weeks, though the number of new cases are smaller those the countries reviewed above.

Developing country hot spots

Still a very large part of the new cases are in developing countries as has been true for the last few months although many countries, including India and Brazil are seeing many fewer new cases in the last two weeks. While India and Brazil had by far the largest number of new cases from developing countries, they were followed by Argentina (197,440), Colombia (104,964), Iran (66,452), Indonesia (57,028), Mexico (55,807), Iraq (49,029), Morocco (48,063), Peru (40,126), the Philippines (30,893), Turkey (25,753), South Africa (23,350), Chile (20,947), Bangladesh (20,434) and then dozens of other countries with smaller numbers of new cases. Of the listed developing countries, only Argentina, Colombia, Iran, Morocco, Turkey and South Africa saw increases from the September 28-October 11 period.

Deaths/100,000 population

The United States has the largest number of deaths of any country to date (224,899) and had the largest number of deaths in the last two weeks (10,522). Because the number of deaths typically follows increases in new cases (with a significant lag), the U.S. saw the number of new deaths increase 6.5% from the prior two weeks deaths (9,880). The countries with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population for the last two weeks were the following: Argentina (11.24), Armenia (5.54), Moldova (5.22), Israel (5.06), Romania (4.94), Belgium (4.91), Iran (4.86), Colombia (4.65), Costa Rica (4.08), Mexico (4.00), Poland (3.63), Panama (3.44), Chile (3.27), and the United States (3.20). All other countries (including all other developed countries) had lower rates of death per 100,000 population. For all countries, the death rate over the last two weeks was 1.02 deaths/100,000 population. So the U.S.’s death rate over the last two weeks was 2.91 times the global average and was much higher than many large and/or developed countries. China’s number was so low, it was 0.00 people/100,000 population; France was 2.93, Germany 0.50, India 0.75, Italy 1.77, Japan 0.07, South Korea 0.05, Singapore 0.02, United Kingdom 2.98, Taiwan 0.00, Canada 0.90, Australia 0.03, New Zealand 0.00.

If looking at the entire period since the end of December 2019 through October 25, the average number of deaths for all countries per 100,000 of population has been 15.16 deaths. The nine countries (of 86 which account for over 98% of total deaths) with the highest death rates/100,000 for the full period are: Peru (10.87), Belgium (93.73), Bolivia (74.93), Brazil (74.34), Spain (74.04), Ecuador (72.19), Chile (73.30), Ecuador (72.19), Mexico (69.56), the United States (68.34). The United States death rate has been 4.51 times the global rate and many times higher than nearly all other developed countries and most developing countries. Consider the following examples: China, where the virus was first found, has a death per 100,000 population of just 0.33 people. India’s data show 8.67 per 100,000 population; Germany has 12.08; Japan has 1.35; Korea is just 0.89; Canada is 26.52; Switzerland is 21.96; Poland is 11.46; Ukraine is 14.30; Norway is 5.24; Australia is 3.59; New Zealand is 0.52.

Conclusion

The world in the first ten months of 2020 has struggled to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. While many countries in Europe and some in Asia and the major countries in Oceania had greatly reduced the number of new cases over time, there has been a significant resurgence in many of these countries (particularly in Europe where current rates of new cases are greater than during the March-April initial wave) as their economies reopen, travel restrictions are eased, schools reopen in many countries and fall comes to the northern hemisphere. But the number of new cases continues to rage in a few countries in the Americas, with the United States heading to new records. While there are growing number of cases in many developing countries in Asia and Africa, many countries are seeing significant declines with relatively smaller number of cases in Africa in total than in other continents.

A recent WTO Secretariat information paper showed that there has been a reduction in shortages of many medical goods needed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic which is obviously good news, although as the global total of new cases continues to rise, there may yet be additional challenges in terms of supply. See 18 September 2020, Information Note, How WTO Members Have Used Trade Measures to Expedite Access to COVID-19 Critical Medical Goods and Services, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/covid19_e/services_report_16092020_e.pdf.

Despite significant expansion of production of PPE around the world and despite progress within GAVI on its program for outreach with various vaccines when developed (including securing production capacity in a number of countries), and other relevant medical goods and the ongoing efforts of CEPI on vaccine developments, and the license agreements that have been entered into by a number of the major groups developing vaccines for COVID-19, India and South Africa have filed a waiver request from most TRIPs obligations “in relation to prevention, containment of treatment of COVID-19”. The waiver request would apply to all WTO Members for a number of years (yet to be determined). See Communication from India and South Africa, Waiver from Certain Provisions of the TRIPs Agreement for the Prevention, Containment and Treatment of COVID-19, 2 October 2020, IP/C/W/669. While I will address the waiver request in a later post, it is hard to imagine that the normal requirements for seeking a waiver have been met with the current communication. Based on the readout of the October 20, 2020 TRIPs Council meeting, it is likely that the waiver request will generate significant controversy in the coming three months and could complicate current efforts at greater global cooperation in addressing the pandemic.

With the third round of consultations for a new Director-General concluding on Tuesday, October 27, whoever the new Director-General ends up being can add the waiver request to the list of highly controversial matters that confront the WTO heading towards the end of 2020.

COVID-19 new cases over last 14 days pass 5,000,000 for first time on October 22.

· October 22, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

According to data compile by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, total new COVID-19 cases reported globally reached 5,042,415 for the last fourteen days on October 22, 2020 bringing the totals since data started to be gathered at the end of 2019 to 41.299 million cases. See European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, October 22, 2020, COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 22 October 2020, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases. This is the first day where the two week total exceeded five million. The most recent two week total compares to 3,780,469 new cases for the two weeks ending on September 13; 3,019,983 new cases for the two weeks ending on July 19; 1,932,024 new cases for the two weeks ending on June 21; and 1,281,916 new cases for the two weeks ending on May 24.

While vaccines are available in China and the Russian Federation to some extent and emergency approval of two vaccines may be presented to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the second half of November 2020, countries is the Americas and Europe in particular are seeing sharp increases in the number of new cases as cooler weather and greater time indoors accompanies the start of Fall.

Here are all countries (13) that had 100,000 new cases or more in the last two weeks according to the ECDC report. They account for 3,605,666 of the cases in the last two weeks (71.5%). All but India and Brazil are increasing, most dramatically:

India – 871,291 (down from recent periods)

United States – 786,488 (increasing)

France – 303,912 (increasing)

Brazil – 298,078 (down from recent periods)

United Kingdom – 244,954 (increasing)

Russian Federation – 198,716 (increasing)

Argentina – 196,410 (increasing)

Spain – 169,394 (increasing)

Italy – 115,708 (increasing)

Czechia – 113,555 (increasing)

Colombia – 104,017 (increasing)

Netherlands – 103,024 (increasing)

Belgium – 100,119 (increasing)

Individual countries in Europe are reimposing some restrictions in response to the sharp spike in new cases, including lockdowns in Ireland and Czechia. See Politico, October 21, 2020, EU leaders to discuss Coronavirus on October 29, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-to-confer-on-pandemic-oct-29/. The EU has made arrangements with three groups developing vaccines for early supplies and is reported to be close to arrangements with three more (and possibly with a fourth).

Different states in the United States are responding to the rising number of new cases in different ways reflecting in part the politicization of prevention measures like wearing masks and the continued mixed messages coming from government officials on the pandemic. Rural America which had escaped most of the early infections has been going through large surges, particularly in the middle of the country and in the northern states in the midwest. Hospitalizations have increased in many states and will likely continue to climb if predictions of worsening new case counts continue to play out. The U.S. has made arrangements with a number of pharmaceutical companies and groups for early access to vaccines that receive approval for distribution.

In a recent WTO TRIPs Council meeting, the U.S. and U.S. reportedly opposed a proposal from India and South Africa to waive certain intellectual property protections for a period of time to address getting vaccines and therapeutics to all peoples when available. See World Trade Organization press release, October 20, 2020, Members discuss intellectual property response to the COVID-19 pandemic, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/trip_20oct20_e.htm; Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, October 20, 2020, U.S., EU oppose WTO effort to waive IP protections amid pandemic, https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/us-eu-oppose-wto-effort-waive-ip-protections-amid-pandemic.

As the pandemic continues to rage with a shifting focus on hot spots back to more developed countries and as vaccines get close to approval and mass production, the question of distribution of vaccines and therapeutics to countries in need will become a more pressing issue. While there has been greater international cooperation (with the exception of the U.S.) in supporting groups focuses on getting vaccines to developing and least developed countries, there obviously remains a tension between the role of government in taking care of its citizens and its role in contributing to global outreach. See Nature, 24 September 2020, Who Gets a Covid Vaccine First? Access plans are taking shape, https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-02684-9/d41586-020-02684-9.pdf While the WHO would like to see all countries pool vaccines and make them available to vulnerable groups globally before addressing other national needs, that is a highly unlikely scenario among major producing countries. Particularly for developed countries experiencing large surges in new cases, the political pressure to address the immediate needs at home will likely rule government actions. The good news is that some pharmaceutical companies involved in vaccine development have plans to produce or license production in multiple countries, including in countries for broader distribution to developing and least developed countries. This is in addition to the government and private sector support to GAVI and others for obtaining vaccines and therapeutics and making them available to countries in need.

Conclusion

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate and will likely worsen for the Americas and Europe in the coming weeks. If there are increased restrictions by countries in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, that will slow the economic rebound in important parts of the world and will likely slow the rebound in trade in goods and services.

At the same time, the world is getting close to knowing whether a number of the vaccine trials underway by western pharmaceutical companies have been successful and whether vaccines from these companies will join those of China and Russia. As vaccines and some therapeutics become commercially available, there will be the important challenge of seeing that all peoples with needs are able to access the vaccines and therapeutics on an equitable and affordable basis. The jury is out as to how access will actually work and whether the roll out of vaccines and therapeutics will in fact be equitable and affordable.

The effect of COVID-19 on the operation of WTO dispute settlement panels — Australia and others raise at the September 28 Dispute Settlement Body meeting

· October 14, 2020 · COVID-19, WTO Dispute Settlement · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

While most attention on the WTO’s dispute settlement system has focused on the operation of the Appellate Body, the timeliness of disputes is often driven by the actions of the panel. Under Article 12 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), panels are to render their reports within six months (3 months in urgent matters) and no longer than nine months after the panel is composed. Few if any panels in recent years have remotely come close to meeting a nine month report deadline.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting limitations on in person meetings at the WTO and travel restrictions, the panel process has been further complicated. At the recent Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) meeting of September 28, Australia had put on the agenda the issue of “COVID-19 and dispute settlement”. Agenda item 9 of Proposed Agenda for the 28 September 2020 Dispute Settlement Body meeting, WT/DSB/W/670.

The subsequent press release on the DSB meeting contained the following description of the discussion of Australia’s issue on COVID-19 and dispute settlement.

“Statement by Australia on COVID-19 and dispute settlement

“On behalf of 14 members (Australia; Brazil; Canada; Ecuador; Guatemala; Hong Kong, China; Mexico; New Zealand; Norway; Peru; Singapore; Switzerland; Ukraine; and the United Kingdom), Australia made a statement expressing concern about delays in dispute settlement proceedings resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While it is encouraging that DSB meetings have been able to resume at the WTO, ongoing restrictions affecting international travel and immigration place in question the feasibility of physical participation of panelists and capital-based delegates at meetings in Geneva into the future, Australia noted. During 2020, various governments, private sector organizations, and domestic and international adjudicative bodies worldwide have adapted their usual ways of working to continue operating in these difficult conditions; WTO members must ensure the dispute settlement system does the same.

“Australia urged panels to consider, in consultation with parties, flexible, alternative arrangements to ensure dispute proceedings can continue to progress in a timely manner despite the challenge of current restrictions. Australia recalled that Article 12.1 of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) affords panels discretion in the working procedures they adopt in individual disputes, and that panels, after consulting in parties, may determine alternative arrangements that would best serve the satisfactory settlement of the matters. Some panels have already adjusted their procedures to hold substantive meetings virtually through video conferencing technology; Australia welcomed these developments but, to ensure the equitable operation of the dispute settlement system, WTO members must find solutions to enable all current and future matters to move forward in one way or another.

“Several delegations took the floor to comment. Japan said that while virtual meetings are an option, face to face meetings were preferable, and that each panel should consult with parties on how to proceed in order to strike an appropriate balance between prompt settlement of disputes and protection of due process. India said oral hearings were an intrinsic aspect of due process rights guaranteed by the DSU and that panels cannot truncate these rights without the agreement of the parties in a dispute.

“The United States encouraged each panel to consult with the parties on how to proceed, bearing in mind the views of the parties and the relevant provisions of the DSU. China said it was fundamental to provide certainty in dispute settlement in order to avoid any undue delay; it noted some panels have adopted flexible procedures as a response. The EU said that the discretion of panels is not completely unfettered and that they must ensure the prompt settlement of disputes, a principle that was valid for all disputes. Both South Africa and Nigeria (for the African Group) noted the asymmetrical impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developing country members.”

WTO Dispute Settlement, 28 September 2020, Panel established to review China’s compliance with farm subsidy ruling, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/dsb_28sep20_e.htm.

The fact that Australia and others raised the issue at the DSB is certainly welcome, although the comments of Members at the DSB meeting indicates that there are both an array of problems facing different Members and arguably mixed motives for some in concerns about alternative approaches to in person meetings.

First, panels have regularly used the existence of the pandemic as a justification for a lengthy delay in the likely release of a panel report. See, e.g., India – Additional Duties on Certain Products from the United States, WT/DS585/4 (4 June 2020)(panel composed on 7 January 2020, because of pandemic, report to parties not before the second quarter of 2021); India – Measures Concerning Sugar and Sugarcane, WT/DS579/9; WT/DS580/9; WT/DS581/10 (29 April 2020)(complainants are Guatemala, Australia and Brazil)(panels composed on 28 October 2019, report to the parties not before the second quarter of 2021).

Thus, the issue of delay caused by the pandemic is an important one to address to maintain the timely operation of panels. While many developing countries may have greater challenges in terms of internal infrastructure for alternative means of handling disputes remotely, the claim of due process concerns at least for some Members is suspect particularly if the functioning of administrative and judicial activities in-country are being handled remotely/virtually as is true in many countries. For example, in the United States, arguments at federal courts are handled remotely, including at the highest court in the land. No Member should be allowed to delay panel proceedings on due process grounds where their own administrative and court proceedings are handled remotely during the pandemic. The Secretariat should seek transparency from Members on how their agencies and courts are handling matters during the pandemic.

Certainly, WTO Members should identify challenges they face to being able to engage in remote/virtual hearings if in person events are not possible. Where problems exist, the WTO Secretariat in conjunction with other organizations should look to see what technical assistance can be provided to permit active participation. Similarly, if issues affect the ability of panelists to handle matters remotely, there should be a review of options that may exist to facilitate panelists ability to participate. Again, the Secretariat should seek information from Members on challenges they face in participating in dispute proceedings and should have information on potential panelists on the same types of issues.

While the basic premises that panels should consult with parties is clearly the correct path to follow (contrary to the current practice of many panels and that reviewed in detail about the Appellate Body), there is the question of what happens when there is a difference among the parties as to how to proceed. The good offices of the Director-General can be used to possibly bridge the differences. Delay should only be permitted when the concerns of the party objecting to proceeding cannot be reasonably overcome.

It will be interesting to see if Members press for a prompt resolution to the concerns raised at the last DSB meeting, or if they simply let the problems continue to fester and delay the proper operation of panels.

World COVID-19 pandemic continues to spin out of control — more than 4.3 million new cases in last two weeks

· October 11, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

After plateauing in terms of new cases during August, COVID-19 new cases are increasing rapidly for the world as a whole. For the period September 28-October 11, data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show new cases in the world being 4,366,825 — an increase of 6.24% from the prior two weeks. Thee period September 14-27, dshow new cases i at 4,110,081. That compares to 3,780,469 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period and 3,558,360 for August 17-30, 3,624,548 for August 3-16 and 3,568,162 for the July 20-August 2 period. Total cases since the end of December 2019 are now at 37.268 million.

The United States which has more confirmed cases (7,718,947) than any other nation and more confirmed deaths from COVID-19 (214,377), saw the number of new cases increase over the last two weeks following the change in direction recorded in the prior two weeks after three two week periods where the U.S. saw a decline in new cases. The U.S. recorded the extraordinary number of 908,980 new cases during the fourteen day period July 20-August 2. That number declined to 740,721 during August 3-16 and further declined to 600,417 new cases in the August 17-30 period and was further reduced to 524,526 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The downtrend was reversed during September 14-27, when the number of new cases increased to 592,690 or a daily average of 42,335 cases. During September 28-October 11, the United States recorded 640,149 new cases (45,725/day). That number is likely to continue upward as recent days have seen the United States recording new cases at more than 50,000/day.

The United States had the second largest number of new cases, following only India whose number of new cases has started a slow descent from its peak of 1,238,176 new cases two weeks ago, with 1,061,274 new cases recorded during September 28-October 11. India is the only country to have recorded more than one million cases in a two week period.

Brazil maintains its hold on third place though its new cases are falling since July 20-August 2 (633,017 new cases) to 609,219 new cases during August 3-16, 529,057 new cases during August 17-30, 469,534 new cases during August 31-September 13, 402,304 new cases during September 14-27 and 364,646 during September 28-October 11.

India, the United States and Brazil accounted for 47.31% of the new global cases during the last two weeks, down from 54.33% during September 14-27 and down from 58.34% in the August 31-September 13 period. The three countries account for prior two weeks) and account for 53.25% of all cases confirmed since late December 2019.

The United States with 4.3% of global population has accounted for 20.70% of total confirmed cases since December 2019 — 4.81 times the share of total cases our population would justify. With the increase in the most recent two weeks, the U.S. was 14.66% of the total new cases during the last two weeks (Sept. 28-October 11) or 3.41 times the U.S. share of global population. The U.S. also accounts for 19.97% of total deaths or 4.64 times the U.S. share of global population.

Changing pattern of growth in cases, developing world still experiencing significant volume of new cases

As reviewed above the United States is seeing a rising number of cases over the last four weeks, a trend that unfortunately seems certain to continue in the near future.

Many developed countries have seen a second wave of cases, as will be reviewed below, which has increased the percent of global new cases occurring in developed countries.

Still a very large part of the new cases are in developing countries as has been true for the last few months. While India and Brazil had by far the largest number of new cases from developing countries, they were followed by Argentina (181,412), Colombia (96,709), Mexico (87,897), Indonesia (57,613), Iraq (54,155), Iran (53,167), Peru (45,496), the Philippines (35,670), Morocco (31,157), Chile (23,616), South Africa (21,398), Turkey (21,065), Bangladesh (19,200) and then dozens of other countries with smaller numbers of new cases. Of the listed developing countries, only Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Chile and South Africa saw increases from the September 14-27 period.

Continued developed country resurgence in new cases

With the reopening of some international travel and with the end of the summer holiday season and the start of cooler weather in fall for northern hemisphere countries, there has been a noticeable surge of new cases in many developed countries, particularly in Western Europe where is it generally described as the coming of a second wave of COVID-19 cases.

France’s spike continued with 191,427 new cases in September 28-October 11 up from 153,535 in the prior two weeks. France’s most recent numbers are 3.36 times the number recorded in August 17-30 period (57,009 new cases) and 1.89 times the number in the August 31-September 13 period, 101,381.

Spain’s spike seems to have plateaued and started a decline in the September 28-Ocotber 11 period with 144,631 new cases. For August 17-30, Spain saw 96,473 new cases. The August 31-September 13 period saw a further large increase for Spain to 127,040 cases. For the period from September 14-27, Spain’s numbers further increased to 150,155.

The United Kingdom is facing major challenges as the last two weeks saw new cases more than double to 161,567 from 64,103 new cases in September 14-27 and just 32,422 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period.

The Netherlands more than doubled its number of new cases during September 28-Ocotber 11 to 59,561 from 27,584 new cases during September 14-27 and just 11,374 during August 31-September 13.

Germany showed a significant increase in the most recent two weeks to 38,724 from 24,712 the prior two weeks and 17,657 new cases in the period from the end of August to mid September.

Czechia which spiked following summer vacations saw its number of new cases during September 28-October 11 grow to 46,080 from 23,893 the prior two weeks and from 11,307 in the August 31 – September 13 period.

Italy jumped to 41,390 new cases during September 28-October up from 21,807 during September 14-27.

Belgium added 40,791 in the September 28-October 11 period more than doubling the numbers from September 14-27 of 17,797.

Romania added 31,168 in the last two weeks up from 18,849 the prior two week.

The Russian Federation had a large spike in the last two week up to 141,513 from 86,209 in the September 14-27 period.

Ukraine saw 60,762 new cases in September 28-October 11, up from 43,645 new cases the prior two weeks.

Canada has seen a second wave in the last four weeks, with new cases in August 31-September 13 time period being 8,468, followed by 15,530 during September 14-27 and 26,466 during September 28-October 11.

Israel’s second wave which reached 73,883 new cases during September 14-27, saw a decline to 62,903 new cases in the September 28-October 11 period.

Deaths/100,000 population

The United States has the largest number of deaths of any country to date (214,377) and had the second largest number of deaths in the last two weeks (9,880) behind only India (13,381). Both the U.S. and India saw the number of new deaths decline from the prior two weeks. The countries with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population for the last two weeks were the following: Argentina (17.95), Israel (5.87), Mexico (5.80), Ecuador (5.27), Costa Rica (4.91), Colombia (4.70), Moldova (4.43), Brazil (4.17), Bolivia (4.03), Panama (3.74), Spain (3.62), Chile (3.59), Iran (3.50), Romania (3.46), Peru (3.33), and the United States (3.00). All other countries (including all other developed countries) had lower rates of death per 100,000 population. For all countries, the death rate over the last two weeks was 1.03 deaths/100,000 population. So the U.S.’s death rate over the last two weeks was 2.91 times the global average and was much higher than many large and/or developed countries. China’s number was so low, it was 0.00 people/100,000 population; France was 1.47, Germany 0.19, India 1.01, Italy 0.53, Japan 0.06, South Korea 0.06, Singapore 0.00, United Kingdom 1.18, Taiwan 0.00, Canada 0.86, Australia 0.11, New Zealand 0.00.

If looking at the entire period since the end of December 2019 through October 11, the average number of deaths for all countries per 100,000 of population has been 14.14 deaths. The nine countries (of 86 which account for over 98% of total deaths) with the highest death rates/100,000 for the full period are: Peru (102.19), Belgium (88.82), Bolivia (72.02), Brazil (71.17), Spain (70.16), Ecuador (70.15), Chile (70.03), Mexico (65.56), the United States (65.15). With the exception of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico Peru and the United States, each of the other top countries overall has shown a drastic reduction since their peaks in April and as reflected in the experience in the last two weeks (the European countries were typically less than 1 death per 100,000). The United States death rate has been 4.61 times the global rate and many times higher than nearly all other developed countries and most developing countries. Consider the following examples: China, where the virus was first found, has a death per 100,000 population of just 0.33 people. India’s data show 7.93 per 100,000 population; Germany has 11.58; Japan has 1.28; Korea is just 0.84; Canada is 25.62; Switzerland is 20.98; Poland is 7.83; Ukraine is 11.11; Norway is 5.16; Australia is 3.56; New Zealand is 0.52.

Conclusion

The world in the first nine and a half months of 2020 has struggled to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. While many countries in Europe and some in Asia and the major countries in Oceania had greatly reduced the number of new cases over time, there has been a significant resurgence in many of these countries (particularly in Europe) as their economies reopen, travel restrictions are eased, schools reopen in many countries and fall comes to the northern hemisphere. But the number of new cases continues to rage in much of the Americas (and there is a new surge in Canada and the start of resurgence in the U.S.), in parts of Asia (in particular India) and in limited parts of Africa. A recent WTO Secretariat information paper showed that there has been a reduction in shortages of many medical goods needed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic which is obviously good news, although as the global total of new cases continues to rise, there may yet be additional challenges in terms of supply. See 18 September 2020, Information Note, How WTO Members Have Used Trade Measures to Expedite Access to COVID-19 Critical Medical Goods and Services, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/covid19_e/services_report_16092020_e.pdf.

In the northern hemisphere, countries are going into fall where there will likely be greater time spent indoors which could result in a significant spike in cases which could further stretch the global ability to respond.

Moreover, in many countries, stimulus packages have run their course such that large scale increases in unemployment could happen in the coming weeks. This has been the case in the United States even though the President and many of those closest to him have tested positive for COVID-19. Efforts at a new stimulus package have stalled despite a House which passed a package back in May and a second package in recent weeks. It remains unclear if anything will happen before the national elections on November 3. The result has been tens of thousands of employees furloughed in the airline industry, at major employers like Disney and will likely be the case for many state and local government employees with the start of the fiscal year in October and the obligation for most states to run a balanced budget. The failure of a new stimulus initiative will significantly increase the braking action on the economy from the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2020 in the United States.

Similarly as countries in much of the developed world take new restrictive actions to address the second wave of cases, there will likely be significant ongoing effects to the global economy and international trade.

The last four weeks (beginning on September 14 through October 11) have seen the global number of new cases continue to grow after six weeks in July and most of August of what appeared to be a peak or plateau. For the reasons reviewed above, October – December are likely to see continued growth in the global number of new cases.

The progress on developing safe and effective vaccines is encouraging and has been sped by the willingness of major economies like the U.S. and the EU to fund manufacturing ahead of actual approval of the promising vaccines. Still the timing of outcomes remains unknown though anticipated by the end of 2020 and first part of 2021. China has been distributing one of its vaccines to parts of its population in advance of formal clearance of stage three trials. The Russians have been lining up customers for their vaccine even though the stage three trials are only underway and the results will lag the initial rollout of the vaccine. For other countries (the U.S., European Union, Japan, etc.) the rollout of vaccines if approved will take time to get large parts of the global population vaccinated. It is unclear what the global capacity will be to produce vaccines proven to be safe and effective, although reports suggest a likely significant shortfall despite government assistance in the global supplies that will be available in 2021. This uncertainty about likely capacities, plus the large purchases made by major western governments (U.S., EU, U.K., Japan), will likely place a large cloud over much if not all of 2021 in terms of distribution of vaccines even in an optimistic scenario.

With the world collectively unable to get the pandemic under control in many parts of the world, with likely increases this fall and winter, with fatigue in many countries on the actions needed to slow the spread of the virus and, in at least some countries, the mixed messages from government on the correct actions needed to gain control, the rest of 2020 will be very challenging. With the global death count now over one million, there have already been tens of thousand and likely hundreds of thousands of deaths that didn’t need to occur. The prospect of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands more dying needlessly hang over the global community as an inexplicable failure of at least some governments to protect their citizens and to cooperate for a comprehensive global response.

In last two weeks global COVID-19 cases increased by more than 4.1 million as virus continues to spin out of control

· September 27, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

After plateauing in terms of new cases during August, COVID-19 new cases are increasing rapidly for the world as a whole. For the period September 14-27, data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show new cases in the world topping four million for the first time — 4,110,081. That compares to 3,780,469 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period and 3,558,360 for August 17-30, 3,624,548 for August 3-16 and 3,568,162 for the July 20-August 2 period. Total cases since the end of December 2019 are now above 32.9 million.

The United States which has more confirmed cases (7,078,798) than any other nation and more confirmed deaths from COVID-19 (204,497), saw the number of new cases increase over the last two weeks after three two week periods where the U.S. saw a decline in new cases. The U.S. recorded the extraordinary number of 908,980 new cases during the fourteen day period July 20-August 2. That number declined to 740,721 during August 3-16 and further declined to 600,417 new cases in the August 17-30 period and was further reduced to 524,526 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The downtrend was reversed these past two week, when the number of new cases increased to 592,690 or a daily average of 42,335 cases. The United States had the second largest number of new cases, following only India whose number of new cases is continuing to increase, and were 1,238,176 in the last two weeks, slightly higher than the 1,211,623 new cases reported in the August 31-September 13 period. India is the only country to have recorded more than one million cases in a two week period and appears to have plateaued at a rate of more than 88,000/day over the last month.

Brazil maintains its hold on third place though its new cases are falling since July 20-August 2 (633,017 new cases) to 609,219 new cases during August 3-16, 529,057 new cases during August 17-30, 469,534 new cases during August 31-September 13 and down to 402,304 new cases during September 14-27.

India, the United States and Brazil accounted for 54.33% of the new global cases during the last two weeks (down from 58.34% in the prior two weeks) and account for 54.04% of all cases confirmed since late December 2019 (up from 54.01% through two weeks ago).

The United States with 4.3% of global population has accounted for 21.51% of total confirmed cases since December 2019 — five times the share of total cases our population would justify. With the increase in the most recent two week after six weeks of declines, the U.S. was 14.42% of the total (up from 13.87% of new cases during August 17-30) or 3.35 times the U.S. share of global population. The U.S. also accounts for 20.55% of total deaths or 4.78 times the U.S. share of total population.

Continued growth of cases in the developing world

With the number of new cases in the United States declining over most of the last two months, the trend of new cases being focused on the developing world has shifted with a resurgence in Europe following the summer vacation period with a renewal of at least some international travel. While India and Brazil had by far the largest number of new cases from developing countries, they were followed by Argentina (166,781), Colombia (97,074), Peru (77,301), Iraq (73,883), Mexico (62,458), Iraq (59,191), Indonesia (56,582), the Philippines (43,393), Iran (43,146), Turkey (23,331), Chile (23,313), Bangladesh (21,829), South Africa (21,284) and then dozens of other countries with smaller numbers of new cases. Of the listed developing countries, only India, Argentina, Iraq, Indonesia, Iran and Turkey saw increases from the August 31-September 13 period.

Developed country resurgence in new cases

With the reopening of some international travel and with the end of the summer holiday season, there has been a noticeable surge of new cases in a number of developed countries, particularly in Western Europe where is it generally described as the coming of a second wave of COVID-19 cases. France overtook Spain for the most new cases during September 14-27 with a total of 153,535. France nearly doubled the large number it had experienced in the August 17-30 period (57,009 new cases) in the August 31-September 13 period with new cases reaching 101,381. Spain continues to show large increases for a developed country that had gotten the COVID-19 spread under control until recently. For August 17-30, Spain saw an additional 96,473 new cases. The August 31-September 13 period saw a further large increase for Spain to 127,040 cases. For the period from September 14-27, Spain’s numbers further increased to 150,155. The United Kingdom nearly doubled the number of new cases to 64,103 up from 32,422 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The Netherlands more than doubled its number of new cases during September 14-27 from the prior two week period going to 27,584 new cases from 11,374. Germany showed a significant increase in the most recent two weeks to 24,712 from the prior two weeks (17,657 new cases; two weeks before that 17,538 new cases). Czechia which spiked following summer vacations saw its number of new cases grow to 23,893 from 11,307 in the August 31 – September period; Italy added 21,807 (up from 19,444 the prior two weeks); Romania added 18,849 (up from 16,553 in the prior two weeks). Other countries in Europe (Russia (86,209 new cases), Ukraine (43,645 new cases) and Hungary (12,189 new cases)) as well as Israel (73,883 new cases) also saw significant additional new cases.

Deaths/100,000 population

The United States has the largest number of deaths of any country to date (204,497) and had the second largest number of deaths in the last two weeks (10,796) behind only India (15,917), though the U.S. number of new deaths declined slightly from the prior two weeks while India’s number of new deaths continued to climb. The countries with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population for the last two weeks were the following: Argentina (9.68), Colombia (5.09), Brazil (4.83), Peru (4.76), Costa Rica (4.72), Bolivia (4.61), Mexico (4.42), Panama (3.96), Chile (3.67), Puerto Rico (3.65), Israel (3.97) and the United States (3.28). All other countries (including all other developed countries) had lower rates of death per 100,000 population. For all countries, the death rate over the last two weeks was 0.98 deaths/100,000 population. So the U.S.’s death rate over the last two weeks was 3.35 times the global average and was much higher than many large and/or developed countries. China’s number was so low, it was 0.00 people/100,000 population; France was 1.18, Germany 0.13, India 1.16, Italy 0.36, Japan 0.08, South Korea 0.08, Singapore 0.00, United Kingdom 0.52, Spain 3.16, Taiwan 0.00, Canada 0.25, Australia 0.27, New Zealand 0.02.

If looking at the entire period since the end of December 2019 through September 13, the average number of deaths for all countries per 100,000 of population has been 13.10 deaths. The nine countries (of 86 which account for over 98% of total deaths) with the highest death rates/100,000 for the full period are: Peru (98.87), Belgium (87.07), Bolivia (67.79), Spain (66.54), Chile (66.44), Ecuador (64.89), United Kingdom (62.97), Brazil (67.00), the United States (62.14). With the exception of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and the United States, each of the other top countries overall has shown a drastic reduction since their peaks in April and as reflected in the experience in the last two weeks (the European countries were typically less than 1 death per 100,000). The United States death rate has been 4.74 times the global rate and many times higher many other developed countries and most developing countries. Consider the following examples: China, where the virus was first found, has a death per 100,000 population of just 0.33 people. India’s data show 6.92; Germany has 11.39; Japan has 1.22; Korea is just 0.78; Canada is 24.76; Switzerland is 20.81; Poland is 6.38; Ukraine is 8.87; Norway is 5.07; Australia is 3.45; New Zealand is 0.52.

Conclusion

The world in the first nine months of 2020 has struggled to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. While many countries in Europe and some in Asia and the major countries in Oceania have greatly reduced the number of new cases over time, there has been a significant resurgence in many of these countries (particularly in Europe) as their economies reopen, travel restrictions are eased and as schools reopen in many countries. But the number of new cases continues to rage in much of the Americas (other than Canada), in parts of Asia (in particular India) and in limited parts of Africa. A recent WTO Secretariat information paper showed that there has been a reduction in shortages of many medical goods needed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic which is obviously good news, although as the global total of new cases continues to rise, there may yet be additional challenges in terms of supply. See 18 September 2020, Information Note, How WTO Members Have Used Trade Measures to Expedite Access to COVID-19 Critical Medical Goods and Services, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/covid19_e/services_report_16092020_e.pdf.

In the northern hemisphere, countries are going into fall where there will likely be greater time spent indoors which could result in a significant spike in cases which could further stretch the global ability to respond.

Moreover, in many countries, stimulus packages have run their course such that large scale increases in unemployment could happen in the coming weeks. This is obviously the case in the United States in the airline industry (but also elsewhere) and will likely be the case for many state and local government employees with the start of the fiscal year in October and the obligation for most states to run a balanced budget. See, e.g., Bloomberg Businessweek, September 23, 2020, Airlines Face Desolate Future as Attempts to Reopen Crumble, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-23/coronavirus-pandemic-airlines-face-empty-future-as-crisis-continues?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews. The failure of a new stimulus initiative will significantly increase the braking action on the economy from the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The September 14-27 period has seen the global number of new cases continue to grow after six weeks in July and most of August of what appeared to be a peak or plateau. October – December are likely to see continued growth in the global number of new cases.

The progress on developing safe and effective vaccines is encouraging and has been sped by the willingness of major economies like the U.S. and the EU to fund manufacturing ahead of actual approval of the promising vaccines. Still the results of the phase three trials are not yet in and as a temporary delay by AstraZeneca with its phase three trial showed, the timing of outcomes remains unknown though anticipated by the end of 2020 and first part of 2021. China has been distributing one of its vaccines to parts of its population in advance of formal clearance of stage three trials. The Russians have been lining up customers for their vaccine even though the stage three trials are only underway and the results will lag the initial rollout of the vaccine. For other countries (the U.S., European Union, Japan, etc.) the rollout of vaccines if approved will take time to get large parts of the global population vaccinated. It is unclear what the global capacity will be to produce vaccines proven to be safe and effective, although reports suggest a likely significant shortfall despite government assistance in the global supplies that will be available in 2021. This uncertainty about likely capacities, plus the large purchases made by major western governments (U.S., EU, U.K., Japan), will likely place a large cloud over much if not all of 2021 in terms of distribution of vaccines even in an optimistic scenario.

The ride is likely to get more complicated going forward with the world collectively unable to get the pandemic under control in many parts of the world, with likely increases this fall and winter, with fatigue in many countries on the actions needed to slow the spread of the virus and, in at least some countries, the mixed messages from government on the correct actions needed to gain control. With the global death count nearing one million, there have already been tens of thousand and likely hundreds of thousands of deaths that didn’t need to occur. The prospect of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands more dying needlessly hang over the global community. 2020 has proven to be a very challenging year. Time will tell if the challenge is confined to this year or continues to inflict substantial costs in 2021 and beyond.

OECD data on services trade and latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer — continued drag of travel and tourism on global trade

· September 21, 2020 · COVID-19, travel and tourism · , , , · No Comments

The OECD’s International Trade Pulse, updated September 2020, released on September 18, shows the continued recovery of merchandise trade by OECD members and China, although only China has recovered to levels achieved in 2019. Canada, the United States, Germany, Japan and Korea are roughly 90% of 2019 levels in July; Brazil is slightly above 90% in August; China was about 110% in August. See http://www.oecd.org/sdd/its/international-trade-pulse-oecd-updated-september-2020.htm.

The OECD information on services shows for certain major countries the percent growth or contraction over 2019 broken into three categories — transport, travel and other. Data are provided for China, France, Japan and the U.S. for both services exports and services imports. For all countries reviewed, travel services are from 40% to over 60% below 2019 levels through the first seven months of the year. Total trade in services for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States is provided in Table 2 of the September International Trade Pulse.

The UNWTO’s latest World Tourism Barometer

The global challenge shown in data from the OECD International Trade Pulse on travel services is confirmed with significantly more detail in the UN World Tourism Organization’s World Tourism Barometer, Volume 18, Issue 5, August/September 2020, https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/epdf/10.18111/wtobarometereng.2020.18.1.5.

The UNWTO publication reviews data through June 2020 and in some cases partial data for July and August. The publication notes that global international tourism is down some 65% in the first half of 2020 for a loss of 440 million international arrivals and some USD 460 billion in export revenues. Page 1. Based on preliminary estimates the UNWTO has for international travel in July and August, the publication forecasts a full year decline of some 70% with some recovery in 2021 but not returning to 2019 levels for 2 1/2 to 4 years. Id.

All regions of the world have seen massive declines in international travel and tourism. As measured by international tourist arrivals, the region of Asia and the Pacific saw the greatest decline in the first half of 2020, 72% below 2019 levels. Europe was down 66%; Africa and the Middle East were down 57%; and the Americas were down 55%. Id. at 3. On a sub-regional level, North-East Asia had the largest decline, 83%, while Southern/ Mediterranean Europe had the second largest decline at 72%. Id. at 4. For all regions and sub-regions, the decline in the second quarter of 2020 exceeded 90%, ranging from 90.3% for North America to 99.5% for Subsaharan Africa. Id. at 6.

Some regions have started to ease travel restrictions for travel from some countries which has resulted in some improvements in levels of international tourists in June and from press reports in July and August.

Europe has seen both the largest loss of international tourist arrivals (213 million through June) and also engaged in easing of travel restrictions in June, though the resurgence of cases in July to the present has resulted in some reversals on travel openings. Id. at 7.

The UNWTO report also provides the latest data from international organizations that monitor international passenger demand, international air capacity and hotel occupancy, revenue per available room and average daily rate. Id. at 5. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reported a decline in global air passenger demand of 67% for the first seven months, with July being down 92% vs. June of -97%. Id. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has indicated that international air capacity worldwide was down 59% in the January-July 2020 period versus 2019, with July being down 75% vs. June -88%. However, load factors were 46% lower than 2019 levels despite the drastic reduction in capacity. Id. Airlines around the world are in financial difficulties. In the United States, major airlines have indicated that major layoffs will occur in October without additional government relief. Despite a House bill providing additional stimulus support having been passed months ago, there has been no agreement with the U.S. Senate and White House on an additional stimulus package. With the White House and Senate focused on a highly divisive effort to race through a nomination and confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice following last week’s death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it is highly unlikely that another stimulus package gets approved ahead of the election with the likely result of tens of thousands of additional layoffs in the airline industry come October (and potentially hundreds of thousands of layoffs of state and local government employees as states reduce employment without additional relief). The U.S. stock market has reacted today to the likely lack of an additional stimulus package with declines in the markets.

On the hotel front, the UNWTO report includes information from Smith Travel Research (STR), an organization that prepares reports tracking supply and demand data for the hotel industry. Data reported by the UNWTO report indicates that globally hotels are suffering “double-digit declines in the three metrics, namely revenue per available room (RevPAR), average daily rate (ADR), and occupancy, with performance at low levels across all world regions in July 2020. Occupancy in July reached record lows of 17% in Africa, 19% in Central and South America, 27% in Europe, 35% in the Middle East, 46% i Asia and the Pacific and 47% in the United States.” Id.

While another major part of travel and tourism is not covered by the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, restaurants and bars are also in deep distress in many parts of the world with many countries requiring the closure of bars and restaurants or dramatically reduced capacities or hours of operation. Because of the large number of small businesses in this sector, job losses are high and the likelihood of massive closures a continuing high risk.

Efforts to lift travel restrictions

The UNWTO’s Seventh Report on COVID-19 Related Travel Restrictions, A Global Review for Tourism (as of 10 September 2020), https://webunwto.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2020-09/200909-travel-restrictions.pdf, provides detailed information on the status of countries who have either reopened in part or whole, who remain shut down. The Seventh Report shows some significant movement by countries to reopen or ease restrictions on international travel (a total of 115 countries, up 28 countries from July, now 53% of all destinations). The easing of restrictions are typically partial. Europe has the most countries which have eased restrictions since the start of COVID-19 and the initial lockdowns (44 countries). The Americas has seen liberalization in 27 countries (including 18 Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Africa has seen easing in 26 countries. Asia and the Pacific has seen easing in 13 countries including 5 SIDS. And there have been easing of restrictions in five countries in the Middle East. There are also 93 countries that have complete closure of their borders to international tourism travel including 26 SIDS.

What doesn’t exist are internationally agreed rules for when international tourism should be resumed and hence restrictions eased, what trade policies would facilitate reopening, what infrastructure needs may exist for SIDS and for many developing countries to be able to reopen safely and what assistance international organizations whether the WTO, WHO, IMF, World Bank, regional development banks or others can provide. Development of vaccines and therapeutics are obviously an important part of helping all nations get the virus under long term control. And how quickly and equitably vaccines and therapeutics can be made available to all peoples when approved remains a critical aspect of global control of the virus and improved consumer confidence to travel if restrictions are eased. But greater coordination and cooperation ahead of the availability of these medical products could provide important relief to hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the world.

Conclusion

The largest drag on the global economy from COVID-19 appears to be the extreme contraction of international travel and tourism (along with reduced domestic travel and tourism).

With the projections from the UNWTO being that the world will not regain the level of strength in the global travel and tourism sector for a number of years, there is an urgent need for all nations and the international organizations to up their game to prevent the massive dislocations that are occurring and likely to occur otherwise in the sector.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2020 Goalkeepers Report, COVID-19, A Global Perspective is a Reminder of the Critical Importance of Global Collaboration

· September 15, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , · No Comments

In its annual report on progress on various UN Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) released on September 15, 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation calls out the reversal in trends on many sustainable development goals caused by the world’s effort to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and provides a strong call for collaboration and cooperation among governments and the private sector to address the pandemic and ensure global access to therapeutics and vaccines on an equitable and affordable basis. The report is an important document that should help governments, international organizations, business associations and other NGOs focus on the pending challenges/risks and potential forward movements that are achievable. One of the stunning statements from Bill and Melinda Gates in recent interviews is that availability of vaccines has been set back twenty-five years in the past twenty-five weeks. See Business Insider, September 15, 2020, Bill Gates says the pandemic wiped out 25 years of vaccine progress in 25 weeks, https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-pandemic-wiped-out-25-years-progress-vaccines-2020-9. The link to the Gates Foundation report is here, https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2020-report/#GlobalPerspective.

While the bulk of the report does not directly deal with trade, trade is certainly an important element in global collaborative efforts needed to help with the recovery from the pandemic — whether it is movement of medical goods including therapeutics and vaccines as they get developed, movement of agricultural goods, restoration of services critical for many economies – like travel and tourism, trade facilitation efforts, aid for trade, trade finance, development of rules on digital trade and more.

The report reviews the series of catastrophes flowing from the pandemic. On the economic catastrophe, the report references information from the International Monetary Fund that projects that the global economy will contract by some $12 trillion by the end of 2021 despite some $18 trillion in stimulus spending by governments to reduce the economic impact of the pandemic. “The last time this many countries were in recession at once was in 1870, literally two lifetimes ago.” (Page 7) The report notes that the ability of many countries to provide economic backstops to their economies is quite limited regardless of their economic growth in recent years or effectiveness of management of their governments. Thus, stimulus funding by G20 countries has averaged about 22% of GDP compared to just 3% for countries in sub-Suharan African countries. (Page 8)

The results of the economic impact from the pandemic has been a 7.1 percent increase in the number of people living in extreme poverty in just a few months after some twenty years of progress in reducing those numbers. The rising number of people in poverty are more likely to be women than men reflecting both women’s heavy participation in the informal sector and their handling of such a huge portion of unpaid care work. (Pages 9-10)

The report has a section entitled, “Innovating with Equity in Mind” on pages 14-17 which reviews the need to get the virus under control.

“To get it under control, to end the pandemic, the world should collaborate on three tasks as quickly as possible:

“1. Develop diagnostics and treatments to manage the pandemic in the short term and vaccines to end it in the medium term.

“2. Manufacture as many tests and doses as we can, as fast as we can.

“3. Deliver these tools equitably to those who need them most, no matter where they live or how much money they have.” (Page 14)

The report reviews the low percentage of vaccine candidates that historically have proven successful which supports the need for many candidates to be supported. The report also notes that even with the funding provided by some governments, there is a severe shortage of manufacturing capacity at the present time meaning a likely “longer pandemic, more deaths and a longer global recession.” (Page 15) The report includes the results of a model run by Northeastern University which looks at likely changes in the number of deaths if 2/3rds of vaccine doses are taken by high-income countries compared to the situation where vaccine doses are distributed to all countries based on population. The model’s projection is that a much higher proportion of deaths would be averted where there is equitable distribution of vaccine doses (61% of deaths averted) than if the high income countries take two-thirds of vaccines (33% of death averted). (Page 16)

The report notes that the costs of achieving equitable and affordable distribution of vaccines are high but tiny in comparison to the economic costs to the global economy.

“To be clear, funding these organizations and other key partners adequately will cost a lot of money — but not compared to the cost of a festering pandemic. Every single month, the global economy loses US$500 billion, and a collaborative approach will shave many months off of the world’s timeline. Countries have already committed US$18 trillion to economic stimulus to treat the symptoms of the pandemic. Now they need to invest a small portion of that total to root out its cause.” (Page 17)

The remainder of the report looks at projections for a series of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and particular elements of individual SDGs. The projections provide best case, worst case and a reference scenario as well as showing the 2030 target within the UN SDGs. Elements looked at include poverty, stunting, agriculture, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, family planing, universal health coverage, smoking, vaccines, education, gender equality, sanitation, and financial services for the poor. (Pages 21-45) For nearly all of these issues, progress went from positive to negative in 2020 and the projections typically show even the optimistic scenario as being far off of the 2030 UN SDG target following the pandemic.

Conclusion

The 2020 Goalkeepers Report makes a convincing case that the extraordinary costs of the COVID-19 pandemic have harmed all countries and have generated greater inequality among countries and worsened the outlook for global reforms agreed to by nearly all nations in 2015. The end of the Introduction explains the need for a collaborative response and the costs of not pursuing one:

“There is no such thing as a national solution to a global crisis. All countries must work together to end the pandemic and begin rebuilding economies. The longer it takes us to realize that, the longer it will take (and the more it will cost) to get back on our feet.”

Hopefully the world is listening.

COVID-19 cases increase in last two weeks, setting new global record for new cases in fourteen day period.

· September 13, 2020 · COVID-19 · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

In my last two posts of August 30 and August 16, I suggested that it appeared that the global spread of COVID-19 may have peaked or plateauted. See August 30, 2020, The global number of confirmed COVID-19 cases passes 25 million with more than 843,000 deaths – increased race to lock-up vaccine supplies, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/08/30/the-global-number-of-confirmed-covid-19-cases-passes-25-million-with-more-than-843000-deaths-increased-race-to-lock-up-vaccine-supplies/; August 16, 2020, Is the world at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic?  Last two weeks suggest a peaking of the growth of global infections may be at hand, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2020/08/16/is-the-world-at-the-peak-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-last-two-weeks-suggest-a-peaking-of-the-growth-of-global-infections-may-be-at-hand/. However, data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the August 31-September 13 period shows a return to growth in new cases. The latest two weeks show total new cases of 3,780,469. This compares to the total new cases for the August 17-30 time period of 3,558,360, 3,624,548 for August 3-16 and 3,568,162 for the July 20-August 2 period. Total cases since the end of December 2019 are now just shy of 29 million.

The United States which has more confirmed cases (6,486,108) than any other nation and more confirmed deaths from COVID-19 (193,701), had a third two-week decline in new cases. The U.S. recorded the extraordinary number of 908,980 new cases during the fourteen day period July 20-August 2. That number declined to 740,721 during August 3-16 and further declined to 600,417 new cases in the August 17-30 period and was further reduced to 524,526 new cases in the August 31-September 13 period. The most recent period is still 28.21% higher than what had been the prior peak during April 13-26 of 409,102 new cases. Even with the significant reduction in new cases in the August 31-September 13 period, the United States had the second largest number of new cases, following only India whose number of new cases is continuing to rapidly increase, and were 1,211,623 in the last two weeks (the first country to have more than one million cases in a two week period). Brazil maintains its hold on third place though its new cases are also falling since July 20-August 2 (633,017 new cases) to 609,219 new cases during August 3-16, 529,057 new cases during August 17-30 and 469,534 new cases during August 31-September 13. India, the United States and Brazil accounted for an extraordinary 58.34% of the new global cases during the last two weeks and account for 54.01% of all cases confirmed since late December 2019. The United States with 4.3% of global population has accounted for 22.52% of total confirmed cases since December 2019. With the continued declining numbers in the last two weeks while the overall total of new cases grew, the U.S. was still 13.87% of new cases during August 17-30 or roughly three times the U.S. share of global population.

Continued growth of cases in the developing world

With the number of new cases in the United States declining, the trend to new cases being focused on the developing world continues although there has been some significant resurgence of new cases in a number of developed countries during the summer vacation period with a renewal of at least some international travel. While India and Brazil had by far the largest number of new cases from developing countries, they were followed by Argentina (143,681), Colombia (109,050), Peru (83,397), Mexico (72,261), Iraq (59,332), Indonesia (45,562), the Philippines (44,732), South Africa (25,663) and then dozens of other countries with smaller numbers of new cases.

Developed country resurgence in new cases

With the reopening of some international travel and with the end of the summer holiday season, there has been a noticeable surge of new cases in a number of developed countries, particularly in Western Europe. Spain showed the largest increase of a developed country that had gotten the COVID-19 spread under control until recently. For August 17-30, Spain saw an additional 96,473 new cases. The August 31-September 13 period saw a further large increase for Spain to 127,040 cases. France nearly doubled the large number it had experienced in the August 17-30 period (57,009 new cases) in the latest two weeks, with new cases reaching 101,381. Germany was up slightly from the prior two weeks (17,538 new cases) at 17,657 new cases. Italy added 19,444; Romania added 16,553; the United Kingdom added 32,422; the Netherlands increased by 11,374; Czechia increased by 11,307. Other countries in Europe (Russia and Ukraine) as well as Israel also saw significant additional new cases.

Deaths/100,000 population

The United States has the largest number of deaths of any country to date (193,701) and had the second largest number of deaths in the last two weeks (10,922) behind only India (15,088), though the U.S. number of new deaths declined from the prior two weeks while India’s number of new deaths continued to climb. The countries with the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population for the last two weeks were the following: Ecuador (24.91), Bolivia (20.49), Colombia (7.29), Argentina (6.48), Peru (6.11), Mexico (5.32), Brazil (5.09), Panama (4.05), Chile (3.77), Puerto Rico (3.65), Costa Rica (3.41) and the United States (3.32). All other countries (including all other developed countries) had lower rates of death per 100,000 population. For all countries, the death rate over the last two weeks was 1.02 deaths/100,000 population in the last two weeks.

If looking at the entire period since the end of December 2019 through September 13, the average number of deaths for all countries per 100,000 of population has been 12.13 deaths. The ten countries (of 71 which account for 98% of total deaths) with the highest death rates/100,000 for the full period are: Peru (94.10), Belgium (86.59), Bolivia (63.38), Spain (63.38), Chile (62.76), Ecuador (62.53), United Kingdom (62.45), Brazil (62.17), Italy (58.98), the United States (58.86). With the exception of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and the United States, each of the other top countries overall has shown a drastic reduction since their peaks in April and as reflected in the experience in the last two weeks (the European countries were typically less than 1 death per 100,000).

Conclusion

The world in the first eight months of 2020 has struggled to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. While many countries in Europe and some in Asia and the major countries in Oceania have greatly reduced the number of new cases over time, there has been some resurgence in many of these countries as their economies reopen, travel restrictions are eased and as schools reopen in many countries. But the number of new cases continues to rage in much of the Americas (other than Canada), in parts of Asia (in particular India) and in parts of Africa. Since most new cases are now in developing countries, it is unclear how many of these countries will be able to handle a significant number of cases, whether their healthcare infrastructure will be overwhelmed and whether they will have the medical goods needed to handle the cases safely.

The August 31-September 13 period has seen the global number of new cases growing after six weeks of what appeared to be a peak or plateau. That is not good news for the world as in many parts of the world schools are reopening and fall and winter will bring greater time indoors likely resulting in continued growth in new cases.

The progress on developing safe and effective vaccines is encouraging and has been sped by the willingness of major economies like the U.S. and the EU to fund manufacturing ahead of actual approval of the promising vaccines. Still the results of the phase three trials are not yet in and as a temporary delay by AstraZeneca with its phase three trial shows, the timing of outcomes remains unknown though anticipated by the end of 2020 and first part of 2021. Still the rollout of vaccines if approved will take time to get large parts of the global population vaccinated. This will likely place a large cloud over much if not all of 2021 even in an optimistic scenario.

Whether the world will rise to the challenges in terms of improving access to medical goods, to maintaining an open trading system, to aiding not only national populations but ensuring assistance to the most vulnerable, and when vaccines are approved to ensuring an equitable and affordable access by all are open questions. If the world is not able to collaborate on these issues, the 2020s will be a lost decade and will threaten global security.

Making the WTO relevant to businesses and workers — the example of travel and tourism

· September 9, 2020 · COVID-19, travel and tourism · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , · No Comments

Each of the eight candidates to become the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization correctly noted that the WTO’s relevance was at risk without significant reform and the ability to make the three pillars of the multilateral trading system function properly (negotiations, transparency/monitoring, dispute settlement). Some candidates talked about the need for the WTO to take actions that can be clearly seen by businesses, workers and consumers as being relevant to their lives. Most have also talked about the need for the WTO to review how it can provide greater resilience and predictability in the context of a pandemic like COVID-19. Some candidates were also asked questions about how the WTO can be more involved in helping the world achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) laid out by the UN in 2015 with a targeted completion date of 2030. Most candidates also commented on the need to improve coordination with other multilateral organizations to see that the capacity needs, financing and other elements often needed for progress on improving integration of smaller and less developed countries into the global trade system are met.

One issue that intersects all of the above needs/concerns is the travel and tourism sector. It is the third largest trade export sector, has been one of the hardest hit sectors globally by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic with some 100-120 million jobs at risk this year with the potential closure of hundreds of thousands or millions of businesses – most mciro-, small- and medium enterprises (MSMEs) — and a sector that directly or indirectly is relevant to most of the UN’s SDGs. It is also a sector where there has been a great deal of activity by other multilateral organizations and the U.N.

While travel and tourism is important for nearly all countries, it has an outsized importance for small island developing states (SIDS), least developed countries (LDCs) and many countries in Africa. Thus, an effort by the WTO to prioritize actions that would help restore the international trade dimension of the travel and tourism sector and in a way that is supportive of the actions of other international organizations would have meaningful effects for businesses, workers and consumers globally.

United Nations, Policy Brief: COVID-19 and Transforming Tourism

On August 25, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a policy brief entitled COVID-19 and Transforming Tourism. The video of his statement when releasing the study can be found here, https://www.unwto.org/news/un-secretary-general-it-is-imperative-that-we-rebuild-the-tourism-sector (news release with video of statement towards bottom). The press release from the UN World Tourism Organization is copied below (emphasis in original).

“UN SECRETARY-GENERAL: ‘IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE REBUILD THE TOURISM SECTOR IN A SAFE, EQUITABLE AND CLIMATE FRIENDLY MANNER‘

“Madrid, Spain, 25 August 2020 – As part of the wider UN response to COVID-19, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres released today a thematic brief on the impact the pandemic has had on tourism. Drawing on the latest data from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the lead author of the publication, it warns that as many as 100 million direct tourism jobs are at risk, and the massive drop in export revenues from tourism could reduce global GDP by as much as 2.8%. The brief stresses that tourism is an essential pillar of the SDGs and the most vulnerable workers and nations at greatest risk.

“Tourism has been among the hardest hit of all sectors by COVID-19 and no country has been unaffected, with restrictions on travel and a sudden drop in consumer demand leading to an unprecedented fall in international tourist numbers.

“The ‘COVID-19 and Transforming Tourism’ Policy Brief from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, makes clear the impact that the pandemic has had on global tourism and how this affects everything from jobs and economies to wildlife conservation and the protection of cultural heritage.

“Mr Guterres said: that ‘It is imperative that we rebuild the tourism sector‘ in a ‘safe, equitable and climate friendly’ manner and so ‘ensure tourism regains its position as a provider of decent jobs, stable incomes and the protection of our cultural and natural heritage’. The UN Secretary-General further underscored that tourism is one of the world’s most important economic sectors, providing ‘livelihoods to hundreds of millions more’, while it’“boosts economies and enables countries to thrive’, and at
the same time allowing ‘people to experience some of the world’s cultural and natural riches and brings people closer to each other, highlighting our common humanity’.

“The Brief warns that the impacts of the pandemic on tourism are already placing conservation efforts in jeopardy. Citing case studies from around the world, it warns that the sudden fall in tourism revenues has cut off funding for biodiversity conservation and, with livelihoods at risk in and around protected areas, cases of poaching and looting are expected to rise. Again, the impact on biodiversity and ecosystems will be particularly critical in SIDS and LDCs. Furthermore, with 90% of World Heritages Sites having closed as a result of the pandemic, both tangible and intangible heritage is at risk in all parts of the world.


“Five points priorities moving forward

“UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: ‘Tourism touches on nearly every part of our societies and is a cornerstone of growth and employment, both in developed and developing economies. The United Nations Secretary-General echoes the five key priority areas that UNWTO has identified for tourism to return and drive wider recovery, and both governments and the private sector now have a duty to put this plan into
action.’

“The Policy Brief notes that women, youth and workers in the informal economy are most at risk from job losses and business closures across the tourism sector. At the same time, destinations most reliant on tourism for jobs and economic growth, including SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are likely to be hardest hit, including through an anticipated fall in foreign direct investment (FDI).

“In addition to calling for strong support for the sector in mitigating these massive impacts, the Brief stresses that this crisis represents an opportunity to rethink tourism, including how it contributes to the SDGs. To this end, the Policy Brief provides Five Priorities for the restart of tourism, all aimed at ensuring a more resilient, inclusive and carbon neutral sector. These priorities are:

“1. Mitigate socio-economic impacts on livelihoods, particularly women’s employment and economic security.

“2. Boost competitiveness and build resilience, including through economic
diversification and encouragement of MSMEs.

“3. Advance innovation and digital transformation of tourism

“4. Foster sustainability and green growth

“5. Enhanced focus on coordination, and responsible leadership

“Alongside penholder UNWTO, a further 11 United Nations agencies contributed to the Policy Brief, highlighting the sector’s unique importance and outreach.”

The policy brief is embedded below.

SG-Policy-Brief-on-COVID-and-Tourism

There are a set of slides that lay out what is at stake for the world from the impact of COVID-19 on tourism. International tourist arrivals are down 56% in the January – May time period for the world, with the range by region being between 47% (Americas and Africa) and 60% (Asia and the Pacific). The loss in revenue in five months was US$320 billion with an annual projection of lost revenue from US$910 billion to US$1.2 trillion. The most optimistic projection has international tourism revenues declining to a level last seen in 2003.

The small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs) most at risk include 21 which have international tourism exports accounting for 50-90% of total exports of goods and services and an additional 20 countries where international tourism exports are between 30 and 50% of total exports of goods and services. Macao (China), Palau, Bahamas, Saint-Lucia, Maldives, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba are all 80% or higher; St. Maarteen and Anguila are 70-79%; Cabo Verde, Antigua & Barbuda, Sao Tome & Principe, Barbados, Vanuatu, and Samoa are all 60-69%; Jamaica, Montenegro, Gambia, Fiji, Comoros, and Dominica are all 50-59%; Tonga, Ethiopa, Belize, Lebanon, Montserrat, Georgia, French Polynesia, and Jordan are all 40-49%; and Mauritus, Seychelles, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Bermuda, Albania, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Croatia, Tanzania, Curacao, Grenada, and St. Kitts and Nevis are all 30-39%.

One of slides shows that women make up 54% of the workforce of accommodation and food services supporting the point that women are among the most vulnerable in terms of job security during the pandemic.

The slides are embedded below.

UN-Tourism-Policy-Brief-Visuals

Conclusion

As WTO Members look at their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in general with a focus on export restraints and other restrictions, consider how trade can speed economic recovery and consider steps that should be taken to reduce the challenges should there be another health pandemic in the future, it is important that the Members consider the travel and tourism sector with a sense of urgency. Cooperation and coordination among WTO Members on when and how to reopen international travel and other needs of travelers, businesses, workers and host governments is obviously critical. Also coordination with the WHO, UNWTO, IMF, World Bank and regional development banks is critical to see that the special needs of SIDS, LDCs and the MSMEs are identified and addressed.