Monday Morning News & Notes
Global COVID hot spots. Worldwide food prices drop
🦠Pandemic🦠
🌍 🦠
Globally, COVID numbers have kept tumbling according to the latest weekly update from the World Health Organization. It says there were nearly two-million new infections (-30%) and over 12,000 more deaths (-39%) in the 28-day period ending April 30.
“Reported COVID cases are underestimates of infection rates, largely due to the reductions in testing globally, and potential delays in reporting. Data should be interpreted in light of changes in testing and surveillance.”
The WHO reports 94,096 more global COVID hospitalizations (-27%) and another 2,723 intensive care admissions (-13%) in the latest reporting period. Among the 25 countries reporting hospital numbers, six nations reported increases of 20% or higher. They are, Mongolia with 1,299 admissions (+1,446%), Indonesia (+171%), Zimbabwe (+48%), Malaysia (+42%), Bangladesh (+33%), and Argentina (+26%). The highest number of overall hospitalizations was in the United States with 37,426 new coronavirus patients (-32%).
34 countries have reported ICU data to the global health agency. Of those, just two reported significant increases in new patients. They are Malaysia with 150 new intensive care admissions (+206%) and Indonesia with 406 more patients in an ICU (+148%). Overall, France had the most new intensive care admissions with 869 (-15%). Australia also saw ICU numbers creep upward with 283 new patients (+1%).
Four of the six global health regions saw infection numbers drop. But Africa (+3%) and the Western Pacific (+10%) regions both saw coronavirus cases increase. Pandemic deaths decreased across all six regions.
At the individual country level, the news is a little more nuanced. Among the global hot spots, South Korea once again had the most new infections with 476,087 (+44%). It was followed by the United States with 170,425 (-57%). Australia saw its case numbers jump with 138,721 confirmed infections (+22%). Brazil with 129,610 new infections (-32%) and France with 106,803 new cases (-46%) round out the countries reporting the highest infection numbers.
The U.S. once again saw more pandemic deaths than any country on earth with 3,089 more American lives lost (-41%). Brazil suffered 1,170 more virus deaths (-7%). While France with 685 fatalities (-22%) and Italy with 606 deaths (-4%) round out the countries with the highest number of COVID deaths.
Other global hot spots include, Cuba where infections are rising (+271%), Puerto Rico also saw case numbers increase (+99%), Thailand saw infections (+91%) and deaths (+405%) rise, while pandemic fatalities also rose in Peru (+63%) and China (+319%).
On the variant front, the WHO says testing and sequencing numbers continue to drop despite its pleas for countries to maintain COVID surveillance. It says there were just 20,796 sequenced positive tests submitted to the global genome database, GISAID, in the last 28 days. Two variants remain in its most serious ‘variants of interest list, XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16. It says global XBB.1.5 numbers are continuing to fall while XBB.1.16 continues to grow. XBB.1.9.1, XBB.1.9.2, and XBB.2.3 are also seeing increasing case numbers.
🇪🇺🦠
The coronavirus situation across Europe remains stable according to the latest weekly update from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. From what it can tell from a rapidly shrinking pool of data infection numbers have either decreased or are treading water in the week ending May 28.
There were another 368 reported COVID deaths in Europe in week 21, which is 50 fewer fatalities than the week before. Portugal was the only country to report an increase in infection-related deaths.
Only two countries, Malta and Portugal, reported that overall infection numbers were increasing. Iceland, Malta, and Portugal also reported rising coronavirus numbers among vulnerable seniors over 65. Liechtenstein, Malta, and Slovenia were the only countries to report increasing positivity percentage rates. The ECDC says increasing trends seen in a handful of European countries have a duration of one to three weeks and overall remain well shy of previous pandemic maximums. Keep in mind the number of coronavirus infections across the board is underreported due to a steep decline in testing.
Malta was the only country in Europe to register an increase in COVID-related hospital admissions.
Among the mere 18 countries meeting the exceedingly low threshold of just 10 sequenced positive test results over a two-week period, it looks like XBB.1.5 remains dominant in Europe. Again due to a bare minimum of testing and genome sequencing European health authorities are now largely blind to the variant situation.
Uptake for a 2nd booster dose in Europe among seniors who are most at risk remains embarrassingly low. Just 35.6% of vulnerable seniors over 60 have availed themselves of the variant-specific booster dose and the protection it offers.
🇫🇮
Anxiety rates among teenagers in Finland have increased since the COVID pandemic. That is the finding of the latest school survey conducted by the Finnish Institute for Health. About 91,000 students in grades eight and nine answered the health survey. Since the last survey in 2021 anxiety rates have risen with more than 20% of those responding reporting having experienced moderate to severe anxiety. The institute says rates were higher among girls with one in every three having experienced anxiety. Among boys, the rate was one in ten. The health agency admits some surprise at the results with a return to ‘normal’ and an end to restrictions after the last two years of the pandemic. Researchers suggest that kids could be picking up fear and uncertainty from their parents to do with the economy or the war in Ukraine.
Rates of bullying were also on the rise. 8.6% of boys reported being bullied at least once a week. Among girls, the rate was 7.5%.
🇩🇪
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute has changed from a daily to a weekly coronavirus situation report. It says infection cases and the number of severe infections both continue to decrease in week 21. It recorded around 4.5 million acute respiratory infections that week, slightly fewer than the week before. But respiratory infection-related visits to a doctor increases with around 830,000 consultations. The agency says it had an estimated 92,000 COVID infections over the week. About 16,000 of those required a trip to the Doctor. There were also about 300 virus-related hospital admissions. Intensive care admissions also declined from 261 to 218 week to week.
The agency says the seven-day positivity percentage dropped by 5% week to week.
As is the trend globally, Germany says seniors, especially those over 80, and those with underlying health conditions are the most at risk of a severe infection. Most of the infection activity is among this group. It advises anyone who might be infected or who thinks they have been exposed to coronavirus to avoid contact with vulnerable populations for at least five days.
🦠 💉
Newly formulated COVID vaccines need to be approved for use quickly and target the right variant or variants. Global regulators have met with the European Medicines Agency and the U.S. FDA to hammer out exactly what needs to be done. They agreed that for countries in the northern hemisphere, COVID booster doses should target the XBB variant, likely XBB1.5. Newly formulated bivalent vaccines also need to be able to be used as both booster doses and as primary vaccination, the first two doses.
To speed up approval for the new formulations it was also decided that only data on manufacturing, vaccine quality, and laboratory data, would be required to approve new formulations of already approved COVID vaccines “provided that post-authorization data regarding vaccine quality, effectiveness, immunogenicity and safety data are collected.”
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Future vaccine research, which could provide significant benefits, is being frustrated by the two big COVID vaccine makers Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. The two pharmaceutical giants are so protective of their groundbreaking mRNA vaccine formula that the American Science Society says that existing bivalent vaccines are being kept from researchers who are working on developing vaccines against future variants and other emerging coronaviruses. Even worse, not only can they not get their hands on bivalent doses, but tens of millions of those doses are passing their expiration date and being destroyed.
Science reports that vaccines approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are made available to researchers. But in this case, due to the pandemic and the mRNA vaccines having an emergency use authorization, they are contracted to governments for the sole purpose of vaccinating people.
U.S. director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations Nicole Lurie spoke to Science:
“At this stage of the game, with millions of vaccines on the verge of being thrown away, this seems crazy.”
Because the mRNA vaccines are so ground-breaking they are the new vaccine benchmark and researchers need them as comparators to improve other vaccine candidates. They now are warning of a crisis situation with the pharmaceutical companies’ protectionist policies working directly against public health as they hold up progress on vaccines that could save lives in the future.
🦠
“We are not done with COVID, not even close.”
That is the warning from well-known Yale Immunology Professor Akiko Iwasaki who has been at the forefront of breakthrough coronavirus research. Speaking to The Guardian she says COVID is still out there evolving and circulating.
“That’s why we do need to think about future booster vaccines that match with the circulating variants, as well as the potential of new variants that further evade our existing immunity. I get that people want to move on from the pandemic, but the virus is still out there, people are getting infected, and there’s the possibility of developing long-COVID. I’m still wearing masks and following preventive practices as much as possible.”
Iwasaki is working to try and solve the many mysteries of long-COVID as millions of people around the world struggle with coronavirus symptoms long after ‘recovering.’
“We still don’t have the answers, but there are some hypotheses that are becoming more likely and others less likely. There’s more evidence now showing either viral proteins or viral RNA in various tissues, months after infection. The hypothesis that long Covid symptoms could be caused by the reactivation of latent viruses such as the Epstein-Barr virus is also gaining momentum. The other idea is that changes can occur due to the inflammation from an acute Sars-CoV-2 infection, both at the site of infection and in distal organs such as the brain. We have a paper that we published last year which demonstrates that even a mild Sars-CoV-2 respiratory infection can result in long-term changes to the brain.”
She says they are beginning a new clinical trial where participants will be given a 15-day course of the COVID treatment pill Paxlovid. Iwasaki says they are trying to figure out if a persistent virus infection may be causing long-COVID in some people. By using Paxlovid for 15 days instead of five they are testing to see if the source infection can be eliminated.
⚡️Energy & Environment🍃
🇩🇰 🇮🇪
Danish energy giant Ørsted has reached an agreement with ESB, an Irish energy company, to install wind turbine farms off the coast of Ireland. In a press release, Ørsted says the project could produce as much as 5 gigawatts of renewable energy. It would also contribute to green hydrogen production. One gigawatt can provide enough power for roughly one-million homes.
The Irish government has set a goal of creating enough offshore wind farms to produce 7 gigawatts of power in order to help reach its net zero goals by 2030.
🇩🇰
According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, May was the sixth driest since 1874 and the fifth sunniest since 1920. As Denmark flirts with a severe drought, DMI says there was on average just 14.1 millimeters of rain across the country last month. It says that is 70% below the ten-year average.
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Global food prices tumbled by 2.6% last month according to the world price index from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. That is the lowest level in two years putting food prices roughly back to where they were before Russia invaded Ukraine. Overall, food prices have declined in 13 of the last 14 months. But prices are not following the downward trend in every food group. The cost of sugar and meat has increased slightly even as the price of vegetable oils, dairy products, and grains have dropped between 3% to 9%.
Arbejdernes Landsbank Chief Economist Jeppe Juul Borre spoke to Ritzau and warned that consumers should brace for a “completely wild fall.”
“Danish consumers have experienced significantly more expensive food prices in the past year. But today's figures leave some hope that it may again become cheaper for Danes to fill their shopping basket.”
But he also cautioned there is not a direct correlation between the global price index and prices on the shelves in Denmark or anywhere else.
🇩🇰
The Danish supermarket grocery store chain Coop is going to go directly to its suppliers to campaign for them to lower food prices as soon as possible. Coop says costs from its suppliers remain sky-high even as the cost of virtually everything from energy to transportation have declined in the last year.
Commercial Director Jeff Salter spoke to Dalligvarehandel to say that Coop is ready to “go to great lengths against those who are not responsive and fair.”
“Ultimately, this may mean that we remove some products from our stores. It may also mean that we stop some campaigns. Now we also know that a number of the prices are falling. And then of course we must have the same clarity, and that must have consequences for the prices.”
He says Coop has dedicated a lot of resources to calculating price increases and better understanding the market conditions that determine costs. It wanted to know whether soaring food costs were justified or not.
The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority says that some suppliers may be stuck in extended energy contracts keeping their prices high even as energy prices fall.
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Food prices in Denmark have not increased as much as in neighbouring countries. The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority says increases in food prices in Denmark are a few percentage points lower than in nearby EU countries like Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.
"It reflects relatively strong price increases in the first part of 2022, while Danish consumer prices have been at a more or less constant level since October last year.”
The watchdog agency says while inflation is slowing reductions in food prices have been “significantly delayed” as the Danish economy wrestles with the hangover from surging inflation and soaring energy prices of the last 12 months or so.
"The prices of some of the essential inputs, for example raw materials and energy, to food production began to fall well over a year ago, which may have helped to stabilize prices. Changes in commodity prices do not fully affect consumer food prices until after a considerable delay.”
🇫🇮
Surging food prices have led to efforts to reduce food waste in Finland. The Alepa grocery store chain has begun selling off fruit and vegetables that are a little banged up for cheap. Customers select what they want and then pay €1 per kilo. Alepa says customers love the idea and it allows them to reduce food waste while providing some cheaper food options.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
🇸🇪 🇹🇷
Sweden’s new terrorism law, which it enacted to appease Turkey, will not be used to prevent free speech. That is according to Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer. The minister made the comment after the spokesperson for Turkey’s President took to social media to say that Sweden should use its new terrorism law to stop a demonstration that took place on Sunday. The protest against Sweden’s new anti-terror laws was organized by Kurdish groups in Sweden. Hundreds of people took part and accused Turkey of trying to come after Kurds in Sweden by holding the country’s NATO bid hostage.
Turkey has demanded Sweden extradite members of the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, but has been frustrated by the rule of law after Sweden’s highest court ruled against the extradition requests made so far.
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One more meeting or bust for Sweden to join NATO by the time the alliance holds its summer summit in Lithuania. Turkey, Finland, and Sweden will meet along with NATO officials in the week of June 12. This will be a continuation of the tripartite agreement struck last year between the three countries to gain Turkey’s support for their NATO applications. Since then, Finland has become a member while Turkey continues to roadblock Sweden’s bid.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was in Turkey over the weekend and met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In a press conference on Sunday, Stoltenberg said Sweden was a priority topic.
“We also discussed Sweden’s bid for NATO membership. Turkey has legitimate security concerns. No other ally has faced more terrorist attacks. Sweden has taken significant concrete steps to meet Turkey’s concerns. This includes amending the Swedish constitution, ending its arms embargo, and stepping up anti-terrorism cooperation including against the PKK. Important new terrorism legislation has come into force just a few days ago.”
Stoltenberg confirmed next week’s meeting and acknowledged the protests held in Sweden.
“Sweden has fulfilled its obligations. At the same time I understand it is hard to see demonstrations against Turkey and against NATO in Sweden. But let me be clear, freedom of assembly and expression are core values in our democratic societies. These rights must be protected and upheld.”
When asked by a reporter if Sweden will be sitting as a NATO member in the summer summit, Stoltenberg repeated that Sweden has met all of its membership obligations.
“There is still time to make that happen.”
Stoltenberg said he looked forward to finalising Sweden’s accession as soon as possible.
🇩🇰 🇺🇸
While she continues to deny she has any interest, the rumour mill is keeping Mette Frederiksen’s name at the top of the candidate’s list to be the next Secretary-General of NATO. Frederiksen arrived in Washington, D.C. on Sunday and will be welcomed at the White House today (Monday) to meet with President Joe Biden. Experts note the United States has a big say in who gets the top job at NATO.
Defense of Democracies Foundation Program Director and Defense Analyst Mark Montgomery spoke to Ritzau:
“It would be better if they [Denmark] were at two percent [the share of GDP that must be spent on defense according to NATO targets] already today, but they are working towards that. And they were immediately ready with support for Ukraine, from the very beginning. So Denmark is seen in the US as a consistent and close ally. That is why the USA considers Mette Frederiksen a good candidate.”
Frederiksen has repeatedly denied any interest in the job and even joked with reporters that she will be going to Washington without her resume in hand. She continues to say that she is not looking for a new job and that she is happy to be prime minister of Denmark.
🇩🇪 🇺🇦
Ukraine has officially requested Germany to supply it with long-range Taurus surface-to-air missiles according to the German Defense Ministry. The missiles have a range in excess of 500 kilometers, which would allow Ukraine to hit targets well inside Russia. While Western allies have supplied Ukraine with a massive amount of weaponry and ammunition there has been reluctant to hand over long-range missiles although the UK recently gave Ukraine long-range Storm-Shadow cruise missiles with can hit targets about 550 kilometers away.
Germany is mulling the request. Once a very reticent supplier of arms to Ukraine, times have changed and Germany has become the 2nd biggest weapons supplier to Ukraine behind the United States.
🇪🇺/ 🇷🇺
Russia’s strategic blunder in invading Ukraine and then alienating Europe in defiance continues to have consequences. European statistics agency EuroStat says Russia’s share in extra-EU exports continues to drop like a rock going from 4% in February to a mere 1.8% in March. Over the same timeframe, the share of extra-EU imports from Russia also plummeted month to month going from 9.5% to just 1.9%.
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The European Union is taking aim at people who spread misinformation and those who may be working for foreign actors as spies or saboteurs. The European Parliament is working on what it calls a hybrid war package. Specifically, the legislation seeks to sanction people in the EU, like social media influencers, who are “systemically spreading misinformation.” It also proposes to establish a database of possible spies and sleeper agents. Among other things, it also proposes to better equip universities and companies across Europe so they can spot “suspicious job applicants.”
EU parliamentarian, and Deputy Chair of the INGE committee, Morten Løkkegaard:
“The EU needs new weapons to combat espionage and manipulative disinformation campaigns carried out by Putin's internet army. That is why we emphasize that new sanctions regimes can be used to deter autocrats and not the least individuals in member states.”