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      Trump continues to block pandemic relief package as shutdown looms

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      The president indicated he may veto the 5,000-page bill that he calls a ‘disgrace’ which would extend benefits to AmericansAs unemployment benefits were due to expire for millions of Americans on Saturday, Donald Trump, who spent Christmas playing golf in Florida, continued to block a $900bn pandemic relief bill that would extend them.The package, which Congress passed with bipartisan support on Monday after months of negotiations, would keep unemployment benefits in place until March and expand state benefits by $300 a week – as well as extending an evictions moratorium, providing federal loans to small businesses and $600 direct payments to many Americans. Continue reading… More

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      Frankie Boyle’s big quiz of 2020: ‘How much have you subconsciously tried to suppress?’

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      2020: what a time to still briefly be alive. Let’s look back on the year, after a Christmas so grim for Great Britain that it was almost as if Santa had been reading some history. They said it was political correctness that would end Christmas but now, after the humble office worker was reduced to getting off with their own partner at the Zoom Christmas do, we realise it was actually ended by electing people who try to source medical supplies through their mate’s pest control firm. The Tardis would stop in 2020 barely long enough for Doctor Who to empty its chemical toilet.Every so often, I remember we will be leaving the EU in the middle of a plague and the worst recession in modern history, and then black out and wake up at the bottom of my garden in a pile of canned goods. As Brexit negotiations continued, a 27-acre site in Kent was set to become a lorry park that can take 2,000 lorries. Complaining about your locked gym will soon seem very quaint, when every source of dietary protein is in a parked lorry that can’t be processed because the driver has an apostrophe in his name.One way to not get too down about 2020 is to remind yourself that next year will be worse. But how much of the year can you remember, and how much have you subconsciously tried to suppress? Let’s find out!1. The Labour partyIn many ways, the Labour party should be the natural choice to run a bitterly divided country full of people who hate each other. Keir Starmer, looking like a cross between the bloke who says he’s “unstoppable” before getting fired first on the Apprentice, and an Anglican vicar trying to hold in a fart at a funeral, has been pursuing the approval of newspapers that wouldn’t stop backing the Tories if they crop-dusted the whole country in hot shit. The nationalist posturing required makes him look deeply uncomfortable, as if he’s been asked if he personally would sleep with the Queen and is afraid of both answers. By withdrawing the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer signalled that he can contain the threat posed by the left of the party, which currently consists of a handful of MPs, maybe 10 journalists, and a couple of dozen shitposters called things like @WetAssProletariat.Where did Keir Starmer choose to deliver his keynote Labour conference speech?a) His own kitchen.b) Labour party HQ in Westminster.c) A socially distanced PPE factory in the East End of London.d) A corridor in a deserted Doncaster arts centre.2. Test and traceThe government spent £12bn on it, and yet still the only reliable app for alerting you to the fact that someone deadly is nearby is the one that shows you when your Uber driver has arrived. Of course Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed complaints from people who had to travel 200 miles for a test: he regularly commutes between now and the 1840s, strapped into something built from plans drawn up to the final words of the tortured HG Wells, with a groundsman furiously shovelling venison into a flux capacitor.Which of these organisations was not given contracts to help implement the NHS test-and-trace system?a) Serco.b) Capita.c) The NHS.d) Sitel.3. Boris JohnsonIt’s difficult to speculate on the long-term effects that the pandemic will have on British politics; all we know for certain is that 40% of the survivors will vote Conservative. One flaw in Labour’s relentless framing of prime ministerial incompetence is that the Conservatives can just replace him with someone more competent – possibly Rishi Sunak, and his air of a sixth former who still wears their school uniform. Boris Johnson may be a marshmallow toasting on the funeral pyre of Britain, a post-apocalyptic snowman with the increasingly dishevelled air of something that’s been tied to the front grille of a bin lorry, a demented, sex-case vacuum cleaner bag; but there’s no denying he does possess some Churchillian qualities: racism and obesity.Which of these did Boris Johnson fail to do in his first 365 days as prime minister?a) Get divorced.b) Have a baby.c) Contract coronavirus.d) Secure a trade agreement with the EU.4. Laurence FoxTaking time out from tweeting denials of his privilege while wearing three-piece pyjamas, Laurence (19th-century) Fox announced the launch of his new political party. He certainly looked determined. Or was it sad? I just never quite know which one he’s doing.No doubt he considers himself to be on the Reich side of history, but he may yet regret his statements on Black Lives Matter: the way his acting career’s going, there could well be auditions where he’ll have to take a knee. Fox’s head points to a combination of robust genes and forceps pressure, showing that from the very start he had a reluctance to face the real world. The sort of people who went to his famous boarding school would never be so gauche as to actually mention the name Harrow, except when phoning up for a Chinese takeaway, pissed.In 2020, Fox received large donations for his laughable new culture-war party, and it must have been odd to receive millions of pounds that wasn’t a divorce settlement from the mother of his children. We can only hope that his interest in politics wanes soon, and he can get back on stage and give us his long overdue Othello.Which of these is not something Laurence Fox did this year?a) Announced a personal boycott of Sainsbury’s.b) Got dropped by his acting agent over the phone.c) Acted in a film.d) Got told to fuck off by the Pogues.5. Social mediaIn 2020, the only thing you could say for sure when you met an optimist was that they weren’t on Facebook. Hate-sharing app Twitter has again spent the year setting itself up as an arbiter of morals, a role it’s as convincing in as the Love Island casting department. Personally, I left Twitter because of death threats: Eamonn Holmes just didn’t seem to be reading them any more.Which of these Twitter users has the most followers, and which the least? One point for each correctly placed. a) Donald Trump.b) Katy Perry.c) Logan Paul.d) BTS.6. Trump v BidenThe broad takeaway from the US election is that Americans count as slowly as one would expect. Joe Biden is not exactly overflowing with presence. You see his picture and the first thing you think is, “Was that already in there when I bought the frame?” Even at his most strident, he barely has the presence of a finger-wagging, spectral grandparent that appears as you hover, undecided, over a perineum. He could become the first president assassinated by an icy patch outside the post office.Still, Biden performed surprisingly well during the campaign, especially when you consider that he had to put up with the distraction of his mother’s voice calling his name gently from a bright light. He’s now so close to death that he can talk directly to the Ancestors, and has been ending every press conference by asking people if they have any questions for David Bowie.How old would Joe Biden be by the end of a second term in office?a) 86.b) 84.c) 88.d) 90.7. AsylumPeter Sutcliffe died and Priti Patel didn’t move on the list of Britain’s 10 Worst People, whereas I went up one. Patel has stood out as uniquely dreadful even in a cabinet that is basically Carry On Lord Of The Flies, dresses as if she’s going to the funeral of someone she hates, and often speaks as if trapped in a loveless marriage with her interviewer.Which of the following proposals did Priti Patel’s Home Office not consider as a way of deterring people from seeking asylum in Britain?a) Building a giant wave machine in the English channel.b) Processing asylum seekers on a volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic, a thousand miles from the nearest landmass.c) Training swordfish to burst dinghies.d) Housing asylum applicants on decommissioned oil rigs in the North Sea.8. Grant ShappsGrant Shapps looks like a Blackpool waxwork of Clive Anderson, and has the permanent expression in every TV appearance of a man watching his train pull away behind the camera.But what is his actual job title?a) Secretary of state for transport.b) Minister for Brexit.c) Minister of state for international development.d) Chief whip.9. Conspiracy theoristsThe pandemic has been hard on many conspiracy theorists: eight months of men keeping their distance, too. There are people who believe Covid-19 is spread by 5G. If only that were true: put Virgin Media in charge and we’d be clear of it in days.An anti-mask demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 29 August drew thousands of protesters: which of these countercultural celebrities did not speak?a) Piers Corbyn.b) David Icke.c) Chico Slimani from The X Factor.d) Bill Drummond from the KLF.10. Jeff BezosOur disposable culture isn’t all bad. Without it, I’d miss that warm glow on Boxing Day when my son stuffs my gift in the bin and I imagine, in just a couple of years’ time, the joy on the face of the kid who pulls it from a pile of dirty syringes in a Philippines landfill. Jeff Bezos has become the world’s wealthiest man by pioneering a kind of delivery Argos. I look at Bezos and wonder if the rest of us evolved too much: his acquisitiveness is possibly explained by the fact he looks like a newborn constantly searching for a nipple.What was the most money Bezos made in a single day of the pandemic? a) $100m.b) Nothing. He has said all his profits will go towards developing Covid therapies.c) $150m.d) $13bn.11. PrisonGhislaine Maxwell was arrested. For those of you too young to remember, Ghislaine is the daughter of a media mogul whose death sent ripples around the world – because he was obese and fell in the ocean. Steve Bannon was also arrested and charged with fraud. On the wing, prisoners described his potential arrival as “whatever’s the opposite to fresh meat”.But which of the following are not currently in jail?a) Harvey Weinstein.b) Bill Cosby.c) Ricardo Medina Jr, the red Power Ranger.d) The cops who killed Breonna Taylor.12. Donald TrumpThis year’s presidential debates were like looking through the window of a care home on the day the staff thought they’d play prescription roulette. By managing only to speak to his base and alienating everyone else, Trump ended up being the definitive Twitter president. There’s so much wrong with him you could talk about his presidency for ever and never run out of things to criticise. It’s the equivalent of letting a child repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and then pointing out all the bits that aren’t as good as Michelangelo’s. “Is that meant to be God, Timmy? Why is he eating a Babybel?”In hospital, Trump was given a new drug made by Regeneron, which sounds like the robot who’ll present Match Of The Day once Gary Lineker’s been strapped into the re-education dinghy. He seemed to pull through, but it’s hard to gauge the health of someone who looks like Frankenstein’s monster won a holiday, and who chooses to have the skin colour of a dialysis machine emptied on to snow.Which of these is not something Trump achieved this year?a) The most votes for an incumbent candidate.b) The most retweeted tweet of all time.c) The highest US death toll in a century.d) The most golf ever played by a sitting President.13. The EurosScotland qualified for next year’s Euros after beating Serbia. Facing a team that grew up in a war zone in the 1990s, Serbia lost on penalties.When did Scotland last qualify for a major tournament? a) Argentina 1978.b) Italia 1990.c) France 1998.d) Mexico 1986.14. DystopiaIf only late-stage capitalism could get behind equality and lead us to a golden age where people of all skin colours are considered equally dispensable. For the time being, we needn’t fear AI. The robot that steals your job is expensive. You are cheap. You can only die, whereas it may get scratched.I wonder if our leaders’ go-to platitude, “We’re all in this together”, will ever ring true? Perhaps after the next wave of austerity, as it blares through speakers in the bunk-bedded dormitory of a derelict Sports Direct, rousing us at dawn so that we can harvest kelp in the shallows in exchange for the fibre waste collected from the juicers of gated communities, wearing nothing but underpants: ones we never seem to fully own, underpants where there always seems to be one more payment due to the Corporation.We will dream of one day having our own igloo built from blocks cut from sewer-fat, maybe even moving to a better neighbourhood, just as soon as it’s hot enough to slide our house there. As we heave our bales on to the gangmaster’s counter, the ex-performers among us will kid ourselves it’s still showbiz, as we’re permitted to crack a joke, and if the gangmaster smiles he’ll throw us a treat. We opt for a classic: surely no one has ever not laughed at one where bagpipes are confused with an octopus wearing pyjamas? But just as we can almost taste sugar, a mangled tentacle drops from our kelp block into our open mouth and ruins the moment.Which one of these was not a scientific breakthrough in 2020?a) The discovery that bacteria can survive in space for several years.b) A bionic breakthrough that allows people with paralysis to control computers using their thoughts.c) The confirmation that there are several large saltwater lakes under the ice in the south polar region of the planet Mars.d) An AI which can alter magnetic fields in the human brain, influencing thoughts.Answers1. d. 2. c. 3. d. 4. c.5. Most to least: Perry, Trump, BTS, Paul. 6. a. 7. c. 8. a.9. d.10. d. 11. d. 12. b. 13. c. 14. d. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump claims to be 'working tirelessly' but leaves Covid relief in disarray

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      Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.The increase was Trump’s own demand in a surprise video address on Tuesday night but it was shot down by Republicans who opposed greater spending throughout stimulus talks.Should the relief bill fail, millions of Americans will be without desperately needed relief at least until President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would try again on Monday. “To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face,” she said, “and to deny them the relief they need.”The White House did not immediately confirm if Trump was playing golf. Either way, official guidance to reporters about his “tireless” schedule contrasted with recent examples notably light on commitments, which have left Trump free to make baseless claims of electoral fraud and meet with conspiracy theorists and cronies about attempts to subvert the constitution and stay in power.From Florida, on Wednesday night, the president issued the latest batch of pardons and acts of clemency for political allies.Before Trump intervened, the Covid relief bill was agreed at $900bn and tied to huge spending legislation to keep the government open until September next year. The relief package was set to be the second-biggest in US history, after the $2.3tn Cares Act at the beginning of the pandemic.“Just when you think you have seen it all,” Pelosi wrote to colleagues about Trump’s gambit. “The entire country knows that it is urgent for the president to sign this bill, both to provide the coronavirus relief and to keep government open.”Pelosi offered the president’s proposal for increased payments on Thursday under a procedure that allowed just one lawmaker to object and in a so-called pro forma session, with few lawmakers in attendance. It duly failed.Trump has not expressly threatened to veto the Covid package but on Wednesday he did veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, worth $740bn, over objections to renaming military bases honouring Confederate leaders, to telecoms provisions and more.Congress has not failed to pass the defence bill in 60 years. The House will return on Monday and the Senate on Tuesday, to override Trump’s veto.The president’s extraordinary behaviour has presented his party with a painful political test, not least for Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, fighting to retain their seats in 5 January runoffs that will decide control of the Senate.Senior Republicans were mostly silent after Trump’s intervention on Covid relief, neither Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell nor Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, speaking publicly. On a conference call, House Republicans complained that Trump had thrown them under the bus, one told the Associated Press. Most had voted for the package and urged leaders to use the TV to explain its benefits, the person said.McCarthy sent a letter to colleagues suggesting Republicans would offer their own proposal, picking up on Trump’s complaints about foreign aid to “re-examine how our tax dollars are spent overseas”. Democrats took advantage of Republican disarray. Jon Ossoff, Perdue’s opponent, tweeted simply: “$2,000 checks now.”The relief package represents a hard-fought compromise, a 5,000-page bill that includes $1.4tn to fund government through September 2021. The relief bill would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, along with new subsidies for businesses, schools, healthcare providers and renters facing eviction.Even though treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin represented the White House in talks, Trump railed against provisions in the broader funding package, including foreign aid included each year, and called the bill a “disgrace”. He did not specifically vow to use his veto power, and there may be enough support in Congress to override him if he does. The Senate cleared the relief package by 92-6, the House by 359-53.The bill is expected to be sent for Trump’s signature on Thursday or Friday, a congressional aide told the AP. Trump could also allow it to expire with a “pocket veto” at the end of the year.The consequences of failure would be severe. It would mean no aid to struggling Americans and small businesses, and no additional resources to help with vaccine distribution in a pandemic in which nearly 19 million have been infected and almost 326,000 have died.Furthermore, because lawmakers linked pandemic relief to funding, the government would shut down on 29 December. A resolution could therefore be forced on Monday, when a stopgap funding bill expires. Democrats are reportedly considering another stopgap to keep government running until Biden is sworn in.Biden insisted to newspaper columnists on Wednesday that “there are enough Republicans prepared to meet him in the middle that he can get things done in an evenly divided Congress”. He applauded lawmakers and said the relief package “provides vital relief at a critical time”. He also said more would be needed.Arriving at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was greeted by hundreds of supporters. Few wore masks or socially distanced to mitigate Covid transmission as they waved flags and signs and chanted “Four more years!”One small boy had a sign that said “We’re going to miss you”. But there were a few Trump opponents too. One held a sign that said: “Go Away.” More

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      in US Politics

      Environmental groups hail Covid relief bill – but more needs to be done

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      Joe Biden’s pledge to make the climate emergency a top priority of his administration from day one has received a major boost from the $900bn Covid-19 relief bill that cleared Congress this week and now awaits Donald Trump’s signature.
      The president has demanded changes but nonetheless the package has been hailed by environmental groups as an important move towards re-engaging the US with international efforts to tackle the climate crisis and move towards a clean energy future.
      “The bill contains some truly historic provisions that represent the most significant climate legislation passed by Congress in over a decade,” said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action.
      The Sierra Club, an environmental group which operates in all 50 states, expressed a sigh of relief that Republican intransigence, led by the president and Mitch McConnell in the Senate, had finally been overcome. Kirin Kennedy, the group’s deputy legislative director, expressed confidence that the bill would contribute towards “addressing major sources of pollution, growing clean energy, and making progress across government agencies to advance climate action”.
      But she added that the Biden administration had a lot of work still to do to, in the president-elect’s phrase, “build back better”. Kennedy said that meant “investing in clean, renewable energy that can power communities, not saddling them with false solutions or pollution for decades to come”.
      Set against the time-critical nature of the climate crisis and the need for immediate action to curb pollution and switch to renewable energies, the relief bill falls short both in the scale and ambition of its commitments.
      “Is this enough to meet the urgency of the moment? The short answer is plainly no – the package is smaller than we’ve called for and certainly smaller than the science demands,” Ricketts said.
      But contained in the bill are a number of provisions that represent a clear advance in the US stance on the climate crisis, at the end of four years of Trump administration attacks on environmental protections.
      By the far the most significant of those advances is the commitment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are widely used as coolants in air conditioners, fridges and cars.
      Under the terms of the relief bill, most HFC use would end by 2035. The overall global impact of such a firm gesture by the US could lead to 0.5C of avoided warming this century.
      Ricketts said that the move was not only important in its own right in the climate fight, but it also made a statement that the US was prepared to work with world partners. That was all the more poignant coming just a month after Trump took the US formally out of the Paris climate agreement.
      “This is a timely way of showing that we can still play on the international stage and meet our commitments,” he said.
      Among other measures in the bill that have received praise from environmental groups are extensions to tax credits for renewable energy technologies. Offshore wind could enjoy a particular boost with the incentives lasting five years.
      “This is an industry that is just starting to drive down the runway for take-off in the US,” Ricketts said. “There’s an enormous potential, especially in the north east, and the five-year tax incentive is critical.”
      A further area of significant reform is the pot of $35bn provided for research and development in a range of innovations designed to confront the climate crisis. They include the creation of more efficient batteries, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear reactor technology.
      Katherine Egland, environment and climate justice chair for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People national board of directors, said that for African American and other low-income communities the relief bill would impact lives. She lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and this year has experienced firsthand the confluence of the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis and racial injustice.
      “We have been confronted by a syndemic in 2020,” she told the Guardian. “We have had to cope with the disproportionate impacts of Covid and climate, during an unprecedented storm season and a year rife with racial unrest.”
      Egland said congressional action was welcome “after four years of climate denial. It is a positive step in the right direction”.
      But she said that the country would need to do much more to meet the scale of the crisis: “There is no vaccine to inoculate us against climate change.” More

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      in US Politics

      US government agrees to buy 100m extra doses of Pfizer vaccine

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      Pfizer and BioNTech will provide the US with an additional 100m doses of coronavirus vaccine by mid-summer under a new $2bn deal with the American government.This addition means that Pfizer and BioNTech will deliver a total of 200m doses to the US and enable some 100 million people to be inoculated against the deadly virus.The pharmaceutical companies announced their plan on Wednesday morning in a press release. They plan to deliver all these doses by mid-summer, with a minimum of 70m delivered by 30 June and the remainder “no later than” 31 July. Under this agreement, the US will also have the option to obtain another 400m doses.There have been 18,238,233 Covid-19 cases in the US, with 322,849 recorded deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The US will see its deadliest year in history largely due to Covid-19. Experts believe that overall US life expectancy could drop by as much as three years.“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” said Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine was the first to receive emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. The first shipments were sent to states last week.The FDA has also granted emergency use authorization to Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. While both vaccines require two doses, Moderna does not have to be stored in ultra-cold freezers.News of these additional doses came several weeks after reports revealed that the Trump Administration had passed on the opportunity to purchase millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s vaccine. The administration’s contract with Pfizer was for 100m doses, and provided an opportunity to buy up to 500m additional doses.Trump’s administration decided not to secure an additional 100m doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for the second quarter of 2021, however.While more vaccines are expected to come on line, US officials are also contending with apparent vaccine hesitancy. New data indicated that approximately 50% of Americans would take the vaccine, but 25%of adults said they weren’t certain and another 25% said they would not.Experts have maintained that “herd immunity” – when the overall population has mostly become immune because a significant proportion is – will be achieved when 60% to 70% acquire some level of immunity.The news comes as the devastating current surge has wreaked havoc across the US and especially in California, where officials are warning that the state’s healthcare system may fracture in weeks if people ignore holiday social distancing.Top executives from the state’s largest hospital systems Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health and Sutter Health, which together cover 15 million Californians, said on Tuesday that increasingly exhausted staff, many pressed into service outside their normal duties, are now attending to Covid-19 patients in hallways and conference rooms.The chief executive of the Martin Luther King community hospital in Los Angeles, Dr Elaine Batchlor, separately said patients there have spilled over into the gift shop and five tents outside the emergency department.“We don’t have space for anybody. We’ve been holding patients for days because we can’t get them transferred, can’t get beds for them,” said Dr Alexis Lenz, an emergency room physician at El Centro regional medical center in Imperial county, in the south-east corner of the state.California is closing in on 2m confirmed cases of Covid-19. The state on Tuesday reported nearly 32,700 newly confirmed cases. Another 653 patients were admitted to hospitals, one of the biggest one-day hospitalization jumps for a total approaching 18,000.State data models have predicted the hospitalizations could top 100,000 in a month if current rates continue.More worrying than lack of beds is a lack of personnel. The pool of available travel nurses is drying up as demand for them jumped 44% over the last month, with California, Texas, Florida, New York and Minnesota requesting the most extra staff, according to San Diego-based health care staffing firm Aya Healthcare.“We’re now in a situation where we have surges all across the country, so nobody has many nurses to spare,” said Dr Janet Coffman, a professor of public policy at the University of California in San Francisco.California is contacting places like Australia and Taiwan to fill the need for 3,000 temporary medical workers, particularly nurses trained in critical care. More

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      in World Politics

      How COVID-19 Stole Christmas

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      Heinrich Heine is one of Germany’s most famous poets. He is best known for his poem, “Deutschland, ein Wintermärchen” (“Germany, a Winter’s Tale”) and for the first line of his poem “Nachtgedanken” (“Night Thoughts”), which has become what Germans call a “geflügeltes Wort,” a popular saying: “Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht” — “Thinking of Germany at night, just puts all thought of sleep to flight.”

      Over the past several weeks, anyone who has been closely following how Germany has been dealing with the second wave of COVID-19 could see that it wasn’t going well — not very well at all. Winter in Germany, particularly before Christmas, is associated with Christmas markets, Glühwein (mulled wine), and Lebkuchen (gingerbread), preferably from Nuremberg. These days, the run-up to Christmas is associated with record numbers of COVID-19 infections, overburdened intensive care units, and political leaders not up to the challenge — and that is putting it kindly. Germany’s winter tale has turned into a nightmare, and anyone concerned about the country certainly has a hard time falling asleep.

      The Perils of Federalism in Time of Pandemic

      READ MORE

      On December 11, Germany posted a record of new infections, close to 30,000 that day. At the same time, COVID-19-related deaths reached a new high. ICU staff sent out a cry for help, with capacity on the verge of reaching a tipping point if not already beyond. In the meantime, the country’s top political authorities were still engaged in heated debates about how best to deal with the looming crisis threatening the health care system, and this without turning into the Grinch who ruins Christmas for everybody.

      How did we manage to get to this point? This is the question that Germany’s major news outlets have been asking for the past several weeks. The answer? Vielschichtig — multi-layered — as we like to say in German when we are unsure and don’t want to offend anybody.

      Certain Facts

      There are, however, certain facts. Like elsewhere in Western Europe, during the summer months, when infection rates were way down, the government largely neglected to take the necessary precautions to prepare for the fall. And this in a country where children routinely learn La Fontaine’s fable of the ant and the cricket. Apparently, German authorities failed to take the moral of the tale to heart — a fatal mistake.

      Germany counts around 25 million inhabitants who fall in the “especially at risk” category. This has a lot to do with the fact that Germany is an aging society, with a relatively skewed age pyramid where a growing number of seniors confront a declining number of young people. According to official statistics, almost 90% of those who have so far died of COVID-19-related complications were older than 69 at the time of their death; around 40% were between 80 and 89. Against that, among those under 50, the death rate was roughly 1%. Yet, once again, German authorities proved rather insouciant. As the prominent news magazine Der Spiegel has put it, German authorities missed the opportunity during the summer to develop innovative measures to protect the country’s seniors and save lives.

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      Once the weather turned cold in late October, the rate of new infections started to surge. Toward the end of the month, new infections were quickly approaching the 20,000 mark, with daily increases of more than 70% compared to the previous week. In response, federal and Länder political leaders reached a consensus, promoted as “shutdown light,” starting in early November. This entailed the closing of restaurants, hotels, museums, cinemas, sports stadiums, bars and cafes, saunas and fitness centers. The idea was that a relatively short lockdown would “break” the second wave and allow Germans to go on with their lives and celebrate a relatively “normal” Christmas.

      The idea drew inspiration from British researchers who proposed “limited duration circuit breaks” as a means to control the spread of the virus. The strategy was supposed to feed two birds with one scone. As the researchers put it, these “’precautionary breaks’ may offer a means of keeping control of the epidemic, while their fixed duration and the forewarning may limit their society impact.”

      Germany’s political authorities were enthusiastic. A leading proponent of stringent measures to combat the virus went so far as to hail the strategy a “milestone” that would break the second wave “as if straight from the textbook.” Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her confidence that the strategy would allow Germany to return to a limited modicum of normalcy in December. In hindsight, this proved to be the arguably “biggest political miscalculation of the year,” as the lead article in Der Spiegel puts it in the most recent print edition.

      In any case, it was a big flop. “Shutdown light” did little to reverse the infection rate. On the contrary, in a number of Länder, among them Saxony and Bavaria, it actually rose. By the beginning of December, the virus was out of control, and Germany’s top political leaders had to admit that they had underestimated it.

      The German Model

      COVID-19 has brutally exposed the limits, weaknesses and shortcomings of the German model. That includes the country’s federal structure. In Germany, the protection against infections is to a large extent in the hands of the Länder, which jealously guard their relative autonomy. This means that during this pandemic, virtually every state has followed its own rules, some strict, some not so. In Bavaria, for instance, which has always prided itself in its laissez-faire approach of “Leben und leben lassen” — “live and let live” — authorities were relatively lenient when it came to the public consumption of alcohol, until “live and let live” turned into “live and let die.” In response, in early December, the Bavarian government issued a general ban on the outdoor sale of alcohol.

      Germany is certainly not alone in discovering the pitfalls of federalism in an intense crisis situation. Switzerland has had similar experiences when it comes to implementing protective measures against the virus, with equally dramatic consequences. Where Germany’s shortcomings are particularly conspicuous is with respect to the level of technological preparedness.

      This is especially glaring with regard to digitalization. It is revealing that in April, a leading representative of Germany’s digital economy noted that COVID-19 was a “wake-up call to massively accelerate digitalization.” Eight months later, Germany was still snoozing, seriously hampering serious efforts to deal with the pandemic. As a recent article noted, most local public health departments are still relying on phones and fax machines to inform people that they had been in contact with somebody infected with COVID-19.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Under the circumstances, contact tracing is difficult. To be sure, Germany has the Corona-Warn-App that has been around since June. It should have come much earlier, but technical problems and concerns about privacy delayed the launch. Once it was ready to download, it proved suboptimal. One reason was that most hospitals and other labs could not be connected to the app. As the head of one of Germany’s largest hospital laboratories admitted in October, his lab lacked the devices that would allow him to scan COVID-19 test results.

      Or take the case of distance learning. At the beginning of the pandemic, when schools closed their doors throughout the country, Germany’s public state-owned international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, noted that there was “hardly any country in Europe as ill-prepared for e-learning as Germany.” According to EU data, only a third of German schools were prepared for the lockdown. In the meantime, digital progress has been slow and met with significant resistance, the result of widespread skepticism toward digital learning.

      Rude Awakening

      With COVID-19, Germany is paying the price for years of negligence with respect to new technologies. As so often, in the face of rapid technological innovation and progress, Germany banked on its traditional strengths, improving core sectors such as automobiles, instead of investing in the future. In the process, it fell behind its international competitors. While American and Chines universities turn out thousands of IT specialists, in Germany, the education sector suffers from “financial problems, a lack of digital concepts and a lack of digital competence.” As the head of the German Association of Industry put it several years ago, when it comes to new technologies, Germany is a “Schnarchland” — a country snoring away.

      The pandemic has provoked a rude awakening. A few days ago, the German government, confronted with a runaway infection rate, pulled the emergency brake, ordering a hard lockdown over the holiday season and into the new year. In German, we have a word, “Spassbremse,” — a brake on any kind of fun. If there has ever been a publicly-ordered Spassbremse, this is it. Among other things, the new measures ban public gatherings and fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Whoever has had the opportunity to visit Berlin over New Year’s will understand what this means: tote Hose (dead pants), as we like to say in German.

      There can be no doubt that these measures will put a huge damper on the holiday spirit. Remarkably enough, Germans appear to be rather sanguine. In fact, a survey from early December found that roughly half of respondents wanted tougher measures. Only 13% thought they were exaggerated, with support for tougher measures almost 20% higher than in October. What this suggests is that the problem in Germany is not with the public but with the political establishment, which over the course of this pandemic has failed on numerous occasions to step up to the challenge. And yet, in a recent representative survey, three-quarters of respondents expressed satisfaction with Angela Merkel while two-thirds said they were happy with the governing coalition. Well then, merry Christmas, everyone.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Covid relief: Trump demands changes to sign $900bn bill

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      Outgoing president says $600 stimulus payout to most Americans should increase to $2,000, or $4,000 for a coupleDonald Trump has suggested he may not sign the bipartisan $900bn pandemic relief package that Congress passed on Monday night.Trump complained in a video that the bill delivered too much money to foreign countries and not enough to Americans. The bill has enough votes to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step. Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      New museums and Smokey Bear: what's in the $900bn US stimulus package?

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      Late on Monday night, Congress approved a $900bn stimulus package which will deliver financial aid to millions of families and businesses facing economic distress from coronavirus pandemic. Though far smaller than a bill lawmakers passed at the outset of the pandemic, earlier this year, the measure is one the largest pieces of legislation in US history.The product of frenzied negotiations, the package was paired with a $1.4tn spending bill to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, 30 September 2021. In response to a deepening economic and public health crisis, the rescue bill authorizes direct payments of $600 to those who earn less than $75,000 and extends supplemental unemployment benefits to $300 for 11 weeks.Tucked into the hulking 5,593-page bill, however, are a range of initiatives and obscure provisions that appear to have little to do with fortifying a fragile economy or keeping the government open.New Smithsonian museumsThe legislation authorizes the establishment of two new museums in Washington: the American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino. Such approval, however, is only the first step in a years-long process to build the museums on the National Mall.Despite broad support for the museums, earlier this month Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, blocked legislation that would have approved their establishment, arguing that the US doesn’t need “segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups”.According to the bill, the Latino museum will see visitors “learn about Latino contributions to life, art, history and culture in the United States” while serving “as a gateway for visitors to view other Latino exhibitions, collections, and programming” at institutions across the country. The women’s museum will “recognize diverse perspectives on women’s history and contributions”.Support for the Dalai LamaIn a shot across the bow at China, the bill reaffirms the right of the Tibetan people to reincarnate the Dalai Lama. China regards the exiled spiritual leader, who continues to advocate for a degree of Tibetan self-rule, as a threat to its sovereignty.The text of the legislation warns: “Interference by the Government of the People’s Republic of China or any other government in the process of recognizing a successor or reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama and any future Dalai Lamas would represent a clear abuse of the right to religious freedom of Tibetan Buddhists and the Tibetan people.” The legislation also directs the secretary of state to establish a US consulate in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa.According to Reuters, the political head of Tibetans in exile welcomed the news as a “victory for the Tibetan freedom struggle”. China accused the US of meddling.An end to ‘surprise medical billing’Lawmakers also included an end to this costly practice, which sees patients unexpectedly receive care from providers not covered by their insurers, thereby facing bills far higher than they would typically pay. As many as one in six emergency room visits or in-hospital stays resulted in at least one out-of-network bill in 2017, according to analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.Consumers will be relieved to see the practice effectively banned under legislation which limits what patients can be billed for out-of-network services. Now, doctors and hospitals will have to work with insurers to settle on costs.Although members of both parties have long denounced the practice, efforts to ban it had been thwarted by lobbying from insurers and healthcare providers.The right to reproduce Smokey BearThe bill repeals a provision of federal law criminalizing unauthorized use of Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl, famous mascots of a US Forest Service public safety campaign concerning wildfires and pollution. Previously, illegally reproducing images of Smokey Bear was punishable by up to six months in prison.Heath benefits for Marshall IslandersThe bill corrects a 25-year-old drafting error that denied thousands of islanders access to federal health benefits they were promised after resettling in the US.Lawmakers agreed to allow Marshall Islanders and other islanders covered by the Compact of Free Association to sign up for Medicaid, after a 1996 welfare reform changed the categories qualifying for federal aid and effectively barred them.Democrats led by members from Hawaii have fought for nearly two decades to restore Medicaid eligibility for islanders, without Republican support. They argued that the US broke its commitment to provide medical coverage to islanders who moved to the US after the military used their homeland to test nuclear bombs.“This is a ‘shining moment’ at a time of darkness for our country,” Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono said after the bill passed. “Let’s savor it.”Any other business?There were plenty of other surprises, including $2bn for the new US space force and a tax break for corporate meal expenses, panned as the “three-martini lunch” but a priority for Donald Trump. Senator Bernie Sanders, who pushed for bigger direct payments, called the inclusion of the provisions “pathetic”.Racehorse owners also received a tax break, while $35m was allotted for groups which “implement education in sexual risk avoidance”, which the legislation defines as “voluntarily refraining from non-marital sexual activity”.“This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it,” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter, responding to a report that the bill makes illegal streaming a felony.“Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5,000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in two hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.” More