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      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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      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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      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

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      Covid could shorten US life expectancy by up to three years, experts say

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      The US could see a decline of two to three years in life expectancy in 2020 due to the coronavirus, the steepest drop since the second world war and with Covid-19 poised to become the third-leading cause of death in America, the Wall Street Journal reported.
      In 2019, life expectancy hit 78.8 years, up 0.1 from 2018, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The increase stemmed from decreased death rates in heart disease and cancer, the leading and second-leading causes of death in the US. Drug overdose deaths increased after dropping in 2018 but suicides declined for the first time in 14 years.
      According to data from Johns Hopkins University, 190,519 new cases in the US on Monday saw the Covid-19 caseload pass 18m. By Tuesday morning, there had been 319,466 deaths, 1,696 of them on the day before.
      For comparison, in 2019 around 659,000 people died of heart disease in America, and around 600,000 from cancer. The third-leading cause of death, accidents, killed around 173,000.
      Vaccines are coming on stream, with public figures having shots to encourage widespread take-up, President-elect Joe Biden among them on Monday. Dr Anthony Fauci, the top public health expert, was among those vaccinated on Tuesday.
      Amid concern over the new virus variation detected in the UK, US officials sought to assuage fears, saying it should be monitored but its discovery should not be cause for despair.
      Health secretary Alex Azar, who was also vaccinated, told Fox News both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines should be effective at preventing illness from the recently discovered variant.
      BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin told reporters: “Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine can also deal with this virus variant.”
      Fauci told ABC surveillance was necessary to monitor spread of the British variant, but that officials should not overreact.
      “Travel bans are really rather draconian things to do,” he said.
      In other news on Tuesday, Dr Deborah Birx, a senior Trump adviser who has seen her reputation battered by the White House task force’s failure to combat the pandemic, said she would retire.
      The former US army medic told the Newsy website she wanted to help the incoming Biden administration “in any role that people think I can be helpful in, and then I will retire”.
      Elsewhere, Mike Pence addressed a rightwing conference in Florida at which social distancing and mask-wearing were not in evidence while in Washington, Trump chose to boast about vaccine distribution, which he said was “going very smoothly”.
      Despite reported glitches for which the general in charge of the operation apologised, more than 600,000 Americans, mostly healthcare workers, had received their first vaccine doses by Monday, according to the CDC. Some states began vaccinating long-term care facility residents on Monday.
      Nonetheless, some models predict a death toll of more than 500,000 by the spring, and more than 5,000 deaths a day.
      Robert Anderson, who leads the CDC National Center for Health Statistics mortality-statistics section, told the Journal he used data through August to determine that life expectancy had dropped by approximately 1.5 years.
      “We’ve had a lot of deaths added since August, so I think a drop of two to three years for 2020 isn’t out of the question,” he said.
      Anderson explained that this would be the greatest decrease since 1943, when fatalities in the second world war led to a 2.9 year decline in life expectancy.
      Twenty-five years before that, the Spanish flu resulted in an 11.8-year decline in life expectancy, Anderson said. That sweeping figure stemmed from the fact that virus was especially deadly for children, whose deaths led to a disproportionate decline in life expectancy.
      One demographer, Kenneth M Johnson of the University of New Hampshire, reportedly said the pandemic will cause deaths to outpace births in more than 50% of US counties this year – the first time in US history. Such a reversal would come after the US saw its lowest recorded general fertility rate in 2019.
      “We’ve got people dying and hospital rooms jammed,” Johnson said. “Who’s going to want to have a baby?” More

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      'Congress is not going to be the Grinch': Covid relief bill set to pass on Sunday

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      “Congress is not going to be the Grinch,” a senior Democratic senator said on Sunday, as lawmakers stood poised to vote on a $900bn coronavirus aid package made possible by a late-night compromise on one of the final hurdles, a dispute over Federal Reserve pandemic lending authorities.The package will be tied to a funding bill to avert a government shutdown.Speaking to reporters the day after reaching the compromise with Senate Republicans, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: “Barring a major mishap, the Senate and House will be able to vote on final legislation as early as tonight.”Republican senator Mitt Romney told CNN’s State of the Union: “I believe there is going to be a deal. There are always sticking points, but the big one was resolved last night … They’re working out some additional points but I think it’s going to get done. It’ll get done before Christmas.”Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, referred to a popular Dr Seuss character who “stole” Christmas when he told ABC’s This Week: “The great news is, Congress is not going to be the Grinch. We’re going to get this package done.”The coronavirus aid deal includes $600 direct payments to individuals and a $300 per week unemployment compensation supplement. The second-largest economic stimulus in US history, following the $2.3tn Cares Act passed in March, it will be tied to a $1.4tn spending bill that funds government programs through September 2021.The House was due to meet at noon on Sunday in order to take up the bill.“I do have optimism that it’ll pass,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox Business. “I am very hopeful that we get this done today.”Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the chamber’s top Democrat, told reporters she wanted to give members some time to review the package before calling a vote.“I think we’re close, we’re very close,” Pelosi said. “But we want to have members have enough time to review it all.”Donald Trump, whose administration has largely left negotiations to congressional leaders, used Twitter to complain.“Why isn’t Congress giving our people a Stimulus Bill? [The pandemic] wasn’t their fault, it was the fault of China,” Trump wrote. “GET IT DONE, and give them more money in direct payments.”Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, had insisted on language that would guarantee that the Fed could not revive emergency lending programs for small businesses and state and local governments after 31 December, when they expire under Cares Act relief legislation passed in March.Republicans said the programs represented unnecessary government interference and politicized the Fed. They accused Democrats of seeking to extend them as a way to provide unchecked funds for state and local governments controlled by their party. Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to limit President-elect Joe Biden’s options for boosting the economy after he takes office on 20 January.Toomey spokesman Steve Kelly said the senator’s agreement with Schumer “rescinds more than $429bn in unused Cares Act funds; definitively ends the Cares Act lending facilities by 31 December 2020; stops these facilities from being restarted; and forbids them from being duplicated without congressional approval.”A senior Democratic aide said Toomey had agreed to “drop the broad language in his proposal that would have prevented the Fed chair from establishing similar facilities in the future”.The Senate adjourned a rare Saturday session with a call from Republican leader Mitch McConnell to avoid last-minute disagreements.On Sunday, San Francisco Federal Reserve president Mary Daly told CBS’ Face the Nation the package would provide much-needed relief for the economy.“This support is unequivocally beneficial,” Daly said.In the 11 months since the first coronavirus cases were documented in the US, Covid-19 has killed around 316,000, by far the most in the world, and put millions out of work. Economists say growth will likely remain sluggish until vaccines are widely available in mid- or late 2021.On Sunday, Warner told ABC: “I was with Senator Schumer last night in his office until about 11pm. I was glad to see that Senator Toomey accepted Senator Schumer’s offer on a compromise … We did not think tying the hands of a future Fed or treasury made any sense.“…I’m very proud that in many ways this package only came about because a bipartisan group of senators spent a month working hard, showing the American people that we can actually do things when we have such an amazing need.“So folks who are going to run out of unemployment the day after Christmas, or potentially get kicked out of their apartment, or those long lines at the food banks: help is on the way.” More

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      Second federal prisoner scheduled to die in weeks has Covid, lawyers say

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      A second federal prisoner scheduled to be put to death next month, as the Trump administration rushes to execute more people before Joe Biden takes power, has tested positive for Covid-19, his lawyers said on Friday.Cory Johnson’s diagnosis came a day after attorneys for Dustin John Higgs confirmed he had tested positive at a US prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where both men are on death row.Johnson, Higgs and a third inmate, Lisa Montgomery, are scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the federal complex just days before Biden takes office.The Trump administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year pause in July and has carried out 10 death sentences since then, including two last week. It has executed more people in a single year than any other administration in more than 130 years and this year has killed more inmates than all the states put together.Johnson’s lawyers, Donald Salzman and Ronald Tabak, called on federal authorities to strike their client’s current execution date of 14 January – six days before inauguration day. Higgs is scheduled to die a day later.Montgomery’s execution date is 12 January, but because she is the only woman on federal death row she is held at a separate prison in Texas and would need to be brought to Indiana to be executed. She would be the first woman killed by the US government in 67 years.Johnson’s attorneys said his infection would make it difficult to interact with him in the critical days leading up to his scheduled execution, adding: “The widespread outbreak on the federal death row only confirms the reckless disregard for the lives and safety of staff, prisoners, and attorneys alike.”“If the government will not withdraw the execution date, we will ask the courts to intervene,” they said.The US Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment.Prosecutors alleged Johnson was a crack cocaine dealer who killed seven people in 1992 in an attempt to expand the territory of a Richmond, Virginia, gang and silence informants. His legal team has argued that he is intellectually disabled, with a far below average IQ, and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.Higgs was convicted of ordering the 1996 murders of three women in Maryland. Montgomery was convicted of using a rope to strangle a pregnant woman in 2004 and then using a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from the womb, authorities said.The Bureau of Prisons confirmed in a statement on Thursday that inmates on federal death row have tested positive for Covid-19. As of Thursday, there were more than 300 inmates with confirmed cases at FCC Terre Haute. The Bureau of Prisons said “many of these inmates are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms”.Nationwide, one in every five state and federal prisoners has tested positive for the coronavirus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population, according to data collected by the Associated Press and the Marshall Project. More