In my latest dispatch, I discuss the resources I look at when analyzing the current snapshots of where we are in the corona pandemic, as well as where I think we’re headed this Fall and beyond.
The current wave has key differences from previous spikes in American outbreaks; infected populations are younger overall (owing largely to failures in American universities in educating students and isolating infections) and death rates have thankfully fallen as healthcare workers and hospitals have adapted treatment protocols since the initial wave swept through New York and the northeast. But we’re not out of the woods yet…
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
The previous two dispatches touched on the best-case scenario and the “not good” scenario, and why both indicate the public health response and the economic recovery can’t even begin before there’s a vaccine. Now, let’s pull back a bit and look at the bigger picture.
I’ve spent the last decade of my career telling you that the demographic time bomb was ticking for much of the world. In a scenario in which everything continued along as it was, many countries still had a bit of time to just barely eke out major structural changes. But that isn’t the world we’re in. In this dispatch, I talk about what happens when coronavirus and the coronavirus recession hit demographics.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
There are many reasons why we should not assume a vaccine will return life to normal. I discussed some of these in the first part of this dispatch on the best-case scenario. But it is more complicated than that. For part two in this video dispatch, I was overlooking King’s Lake after a change in the wind blew the smoke from the West coast’s wildfires my way and ended my hike early. It was a fitting time to talk about just a few of the major issues that could push recovery even farther out.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Even in the best case scenario, a coronavirus vaccine can’t be rolled out fully to the general American population until the second quarter of 2021. But that only marks the beginning of the end.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
The coronavirus epidemic in the United States continues to accelerate. Much of the recent news has been about ongoing and unprecedented caseload increases in the large states of California, Texas and Florida.
While I pride myself on being a generalist, I do try to stick to my strengths when it comes to highly technical topics. I’m afraid that as regards coronavirus vaccines that isn’t possible. Biotechnology has veered into my lane, leaving me little choice but to return the favor.
The bottom line:
We’re likely to have a functional vaccine in the fourth quarter of 2020. As normally vaccines require a decade or more to develop, that’s truly moving at warp speed. But within this shiny nugget of good news seethes a swarm of complications and caveats.
Let’s start with the human trials. Vaccine testing proceeds in three phases.
Phase 1 is little more than a safety trial of 50 or so people to make sure the vaccine doesn’t make folks horribly ill. Phase 2 uses a few more people, but it is still little more than checking to be sure the vaccine’s components are not broken down in the body before they can do anything useful. (In the accelerated environment of the COVID crisis, many drug manufacturers are running Phases 1 and 2 concurrently.)
Phase 3 is where things get pathologically interesting. Thousands of people are injected and…released into the wild. The goal is for those injected to be confronted by the virus so that we know if A) the inoculated don’t get sick at all, B) they get sick but cannot spread the virus, C) they do not get sick but might still be able to spread the virus, D) if they get sick but suffer less intense symptoms, E) the proto-vaccine it does nothing at all, or God forbid F) the proto-vaccine actually makes people more susceptible to the virus. F sometimes happens. F sucks.
Point being Phase 3 is where the rubber hits the road. Right now, eight of the over 100 vaccines that are under development globally are in Phase 3 trials. The Russians decided they didn’t need Phase 3 and have gone ahead and approved theirs for general use. (I’m not saying this is preordained to end in unfettered horror, but I’m also not saying now would be a bad time to watch Moscow for signs of the zombie apocalypse.)
When I say we’ll have a functional vaccine in the fourth quarter, what I mean specifically is that at least one of these 100 (most likely one of the eight) will have made it through Phase 3 with a result of A, B, C or D. All those outcomes are considered good enough to qualify as “successful”. But even if the vaccine comes in on September 1 with a solid “A”, that hardly means the COVID-19 crisis is over. If anything, that’s only the start of the road back to normal.
The next piece of the process is manufacturing. Some vaccines require live virus which must be grown en masse. That, obviously, requires significant biohazard lab expansions. Some just require snippets of RNA and can be produced in days. Probably. Some of the newer RNA techniques – like that for the Moderna candidate – are only now being used for human vaccines for the first time. Some use a big vat of yeast which can be prepped in hours. Some need an extract from a specific sort of Chilean soapbark tree that can only be harvested in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. I can’t give you a production timeline because each vaccine uses a different process, the materials and processes are proprietary, and we do not yet know which one will work.
Then there’s distribution. Here I’m not too worried. Every country already has a built-in, tried-and-true system for the mass distribution and application of vaccines. Think biannual flu shots. I’ve always found the logistics that make the flu shot possible to be magical. I’ve not gotten the flu in over a decade. (Go me!)
But that hardly means there cannot be distribution complications. Some vaccines require refrigeration. Some require freezing. Based on components and temperature requirements, each has their own peculiar demands for glass vials and syringes – and even stoppers. Use the wrong packaging or transport method, and you’ve just wasted months of work and millions of doses.
Finally, there’s the far-from-minor issues of efficacy and longevity of protection. Not all vaccines for the same bug are created equal. Some might require a higher dose or even multiple doses to achieve some semblance of protection. For example, that biannual flu shot I’m so fond of requires a higher concentration for the elderly in order to stimulate an immune response. The CanSino candidate might not work in the elderly at all. If two doses are required – which is currently the best guess for the Jenna/Oxford candidate – we’ll need twice the production capacity.
If the vaccine triggers a strong immune response – like the BioNTech/Pfizer candidate appears to – that’s great! But if protection only lasts a few months, we’ll need to mass produce the vaccine for global use forever…or at least until we grind the virus out of the population. (Keep in mind humanity has only actually eliminated one virus – smallpox – to the point we could stop immunizations.)
While things can and will change week by week, at present the Jenna/Oxford candidate seems to be on track to be deemed “successful” first, while the Moderna candidate faces the fewest manufacturing challenges, while the BioNTech/Pfizer candidate appears to be the most effective. China’s CanSino is a bit of a black box, but it will likely be significantly delayed. Determining a vaccine candidate’s effectiveness requires exposing the inoculated to the virus, and the virus really isn’t in circulation in China any longer. That forces the Chinese to convince other nations to be their guinea pigs. *wince*
The dream vaccine would be a one-shot vaccine delivered via nasal inhalant (no syringe required!), be made from yeast, safe to store at room temperature, grant 100% immunity, and last a lifetime. Assuming for the moment such is possible, we’re not very likely to hit the bull’s eye on the first try.
Instead it’s more than merely possible the first “successful” vaccine to market will be one that requires two shots given two months apart, is fabricated using the pancreatic fluids of a llama, only lessens the impact of COVID rather than outright preventing it, must be frozen for transport, and must be re-administered every six months. If that’s the one that wins the race, you can bet we’ll keep developing alternatives until we find something better.
But while we develop better alternatives, we’ll hit another trough. Manufacturers of glass and syringes and stoppers are holding their breath, planning to surge output to whichever candidate proves successful first. Should the first across the finish line not be the ideal vaccine, we will then need to retool everything to supply the manufacturing process for a better vaccine once it proves that it is indeed better. Based on the product requirements, there will be a delay of weeks to months.
Which vaccine is deemed “successful” first matters. No matter which candidate proves successful, global vaccine manufacturing for a fundamentally new cocktail is unlikely to be able to generate more than 100 million doses in calendar year 2020, with an additional one billion to two billion in 2021. If the “winning” mix requires two doses or biannual injections, cut the number of people who can be immunized in half. If it requires two doses and biannual injections, then by the end of 2021 there might not even be enough doses for all American citizens. To maximize their chances of getting what they need, the Americans have thrown $1 billion plus at each of the three lead candidates, complete with pending orders for at least 100 million doses.
That’s smart, but it hardly guarantees success – and the stakes are high. For one, the United States has not only failed to eradicate the novel coronavirus, it has largely failed at even the most basic of mitigation measures. We’ve collectively placed all our chips on securing a vaccine.
For two, not all doses of the “winning” formula will be produced in the United States, and other countries will want doses for their own people. The United Kingdom is a biotech leader who isn’t faring much better than the United States. The Germans are biotech leaders…and health nuts. Should doses be produced in India or China or Brazil, do you really think New Delhi or Beijing or Brasilia will prioritize shipments to the United States? Would you want them to??
So yes, we’ll likely identify something “successful” at some point in the fourth quarter of 2020, but add in the time lags for manufacturing and distribution, and the almost-certainty that Americans will have to share some doses with other nations, and the absolute most optimistic schedule possible for achieving mass inoculation of the American population won’t be until at least April 2021.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
The coronavirus epidemic in the United States continues to accelerate. Much of the recent news has been about ongoing and unprecedented caseload increases in the large states of California, Texas and Florida, which indeed have been racking up record case numbers. Yet in terms of infection rate increases South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kansas, Idaho and Nevada have all left the larger states behind.
The graphic below highlights where new case loads have reached dangerous levels. Red indicates over 500 new cases daily per million population. The threshold for yellow is 200. New York state, home to America’s highest death counts thus far, currently has a rating of 50. Iran – one of the countries that has suffered the highest fatality rates – this week has a rating of 30.
The implications for such a runaway infection rate are many and varied. Political. Cultural. Strategic. Structural. Economic. Here at Zeihan on Geopolitics we’ll get to as many as we can as time and circumstances permit.
For today, however, we’re going to focus on the basics: food. Coronavirus has thrown the American and global agricultural systems for a loop. Today at 2p Eastern / 1p Central / noon Mountain / 11a Pacific Peter Zeihan will host a video conference on The State of Global Agriculture. Join us to get an update on food safety, food supply and to understand where agriculture falls in America’s ongoing trade conflicts.
Getting reliable oil data on any country outside the United States is very nearly an exercise in futility. Even a country with “good” data like the United States sources that data from a half dozen separate bureaus and 50 different states which tend to generate their data either by county or company or a hybridization of both. Muddled data and miscounts are more the norm than accurate collection.
Moreover, any firm that is not publicly traded tends to consider production and sales data a corporate secret, while most countries consider such information flat out state secrets. This proves doubly true for information relating to storage. After all, the core rationale of state-operated oil storage facilities is to enable a country to outlast a crisis like a war.
The result is that we only have decent data at the very low end (when looking at a specific firm or field) or at the very high end (when we’re evaluating something global in scope). Today’s graphic looks at the high: total oil demand broken down by major usage.
There’s a few nuggets to tease out, both about the coronavirus crisis and the future of the sector in general.
First, coronavirus has kept much of the world’s population cooped up, especially in the more energy-intensive developing and developed economies. That’s hit both energy demand for personal use, as well as in industries that support private consumption. Cars, aviation, marine transport and industry have all seen massive drops in oil demand, that at the trough collectively added up to nearly one-fifth of total global demand. (This, of course, is a best guess – remember, the data isn’t great.)
While all these categories have experienced significant rebounds as parts of the world have reopened, they are nowhere near pre-COVID levels.
Even in places with low virus levels, people remain skittish and have cut back their activities.
The pandemic is hardly over. Globally we have far more cases now than two months ago, with the bulk of the (non-China) developing world only now starting its epidemic.
The United States – the world’s largest oil consumer – has backslid and is likely to experience an extended period of subpar economic activity.
Europe and East Asia may be mostly virus free, but their rapidly aging demographics means they are more suppliers than consumers. Full recovery there first requires full recovery in the more consumption-driven United States and (non-China) developing world.
Collectively, these categories comprise 45% of “normal” oil demand. All of them will remain depressed for at least the rest of 2020. In the case of the aviation category, don’t expect a meaningful recovery until after 2023.
Second, one surprisingly resilient category has been trucking, a sector whose oil demand is linked to both local goods distribution and long-haul transport. Oil demand for this sector has proven stubbornly resilient for the simple reason that goods don’t magically transport themselves from farms or ports to people. Trucking is how most people get their stuff, whether that stuff is delivered to stores or their homes. If this sector’s oil demand drops, it means economic catastrophe is in full swing. It has not. So far, so good.
Finally, I’d like to highlight a category for you Greens out there: buildings.
Greens the world over have a reputation for going for big, splashy, high-tech, high-dollar, PR-friendly topics: Electronic vehicles, fields of solar panels, forests of wind turbines. That’s all well and good, but some 10% of global oil supply is burned in boilers to make heat and power for buildings. It is wildly inefficient, wildly expensive and not particularly safe. Better, cleaner, cheaper and safer methods of delivering heat and power have existed for decades. Updating the internal infrastructure of buildings block-by-block has so far been perceived by the Green community as insufficiently macro or sexy to pursue, yet addressing the boiler problem is the ultimate low-hanging fruit in any deep decarbonization effort. Food for thought.
These topics are just the proverbial iceberg-tip. Global energy patterns are spasming in the wake of the COVID crisis, and now that the initial shock is past we’re able to tease out several trends that will shape global oil for years to come. Shifts in blending patterns and trade flows. Major producers simply collapsing, never to return. And of course, the Russians are being sneaky.
All this and more will be explored in our next videoconference on July 8: Energy in a New Era.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Unlike most countries in East Asia or Europe, the United States never managed to get its caseload under control. Between the economic re-openings, Memorial Day parties, and ongoing protests against police violence, cases are rapidly ticking up. On June 24th, the U.S detected 38,672 new cases – that is not only double the low of June 8th-9th, it is already more than the United States’ original peak of new cases registered 10 weeks ago.
If it doesn’t feel like there’s an imminent crisis, that’s because back in March and April, the majority of American COVID cases were concentrated in the New York City metro. It wasn’t ridiculous for many Americans to question whether or not the virus was their problem. Not ridiculous, although certainly myopic.
Fresh – record – outbreaks exist in half the states. While the New York City area has made great strides in lowering case numbers, those gains have become overwhelmed in the national numbers by exploding epidemics in California, Texas, and Florida – three of America’s four largest states by population. Heavily rural states like Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Iowa, and Utah are hitting record high infection levels. Arizona now leads the nation in positive cases on a per capita basis. Within a week, it is likely to surpass even New York City’s peak infection rates, making Phoenix a necessary candidate for a severe lockdown. The American South – the most infected region overall – appears to be no more than three weeks behind Arizona. So much for heat or humidity impeding the virus.
It is worth recalling how the virus progresses. From the point of a mass exposure event (i.e., Spring Break or Mardi Gras), it is typically three to five weeks before the virus spreads sufficiently to show up in the data. At the time of this writing, Memorial Day happened three and a half weeks ago, while mass re-openings around the country average to approximately five weeks ago. From that point, it is another two to four weeks before hospital admissions explode, and then an additional two to three weeks before hospitals start reporting deaths. If this pattern holds true, many hospitals will be pushed to their limits by July, and August will be a very rough period.
There are some (faint) silver linings. When New Yorkers grappled with the first epidemic, there were no best practices or treatments or warnings. We now know that putting everyone on a ventilator is not the best plan. We have at least one drug treatment program for COVID (Remdesivir) that shows some effectiveness. And most of all, this time, we are certain that a massive epidemic is coming nationwide.
For a country as large and diverse as the United States, making broad projections is always squishy, but there are some pretty clear outcomes here:
The infection levels and timing of the new wave suggests that the fall school semester is a no-go. It suggests what re-openings we’ve seen in travel and restaurants will reverse. It suggests the next flu season, which generally begins in October, will be the worst one on record as COVID and the flu strike simultaneously. It suggests the presidential election season will be…fraught. And it certainly suggests that Americans are stuck with COVID until there’s a vaccine.
Our advice today remains similar as it was at this crisis’ beginning: Wash your hands (with soap). Get the new flu vaccine when it comes out (in September). Limit your outings (skip the bars). Wear masks when you so venture (replace or clean them often). Stay six feet apart (don’t be a dumbass). And if you catch the virus, stay home and try to limit your household’s exposure.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics hosts regular webinars on the state of the world and industries from energy to agriculture to manufacturing and beyond.
Our next webinar, scheduled for June 29th, will be on China.
Scheduling and sign-up information can be found here.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Just a decade ago, the financial world was abuzz discussing the future of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This group of largeish developing countries had little to do with one another, and their inclusion with one another made little sense (like optimism for their respective country’s economic development). Their only commonality? These countries have some of the worst global COVID-19 outbreaks, with little reason to believe that they can be contained.
(Once again, big thanks to the FT for making data pulls like this possible. You can make your own comparisons here.)
Let’s begin with Brazil, whose coronavirus epidemic is downright bizarre.
Every country’s physical and economic geography is different. In the case of Brazil, a sharp escarpment parallels the southeastern coast where most Brazilians live. From a viral communicability point of view, it’s the worst and best of all worlds.
The worst: Brazil’s coastal cities are positioned on tiny plots of land, with population densities that exceed even the ant-like living spaces of Japan’s megaplexes. And that’s before one considers the extremely-tightly-packed favelas (slums) that sprawl up city hillsides. Social distancing? HA!
The best: because those plots are small, and because Brazilian coastal cities have pathetically thin infrastructure connecting them, locking down various cities suffering from outbreaks – particularly those at the bottom of the Escarpment – would provide a substantial viral firebreak at a minimal cost. All it would take to limit COVID’s spread from city to city is a modicum of responsiveness from the central government.
That…has not happened.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro initially denied COVID’s existence, then derided it as a “little flu,” then condemned his political opponents for fabricating its existence to discredit him, and now has taken to leading dozens of mass press-the-flesh protests against governors and mayors who would dare COVID-response policies.
The data in the graphic undoubtedly understates the depth of Brazil’s pandemic by a massive margin. Initially, this was because Brazil’s near-confederal governing structure hands a great deal of policy authority to the provincial level. This complicates the gathering, collation, and cross-comparisons needed to generate accurate national-level pictures. But as of the first week of June, Bolsonaro has banned the gathering and publishing of any data that exists. The only government we are aware of that has been more militant in denying COVID is Turkmenistan, where the local dictator primly banned the term “coronavirus” from usage and called it a day.
Consequently, we don’t even have a guess as to how bad things really are. Even if/when a vaccine becomes available, we have very low expectations that the Bolsonaro government will allow distribution. Bolsonaro’s position flat out ends economic growth opportunities for the country until the central government’s policy shifts. Assuming Bolsonaro doesn’t change his mind and is not impeached, he will remain large and in charge until, at least, the national elections in October 2022.
Brazil’s COVID policies are soooo bad that they’ve done something we have long thought impossible: they have made Russia’s health policies look good.
It is…difficult…to know where to start.
During the post-Soviet Russian collapse in the 1990s, the Russian health system was arguably the sector that degraded the most. Soviet-era central planning treated most maladies with industrial-strength antibiotics. When the health system collapsed, doctors left the country en masse, and state medical guidance evaporated – but the antibiotics remained commercially available (no prescription needed). Russians took antibiotics for pretty much every malady, regardless if they were the correct drug or not, and then stopped taking the drugs as soon as they felt better. The result? Russia became a breeding ground for countless drug-resistant pathogens.
Security collapses played a near-matching role in the misery. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Afghan warlords turned to growing opium to earn cash. Opium – and heroin – smuggling routes spiderwebbed out from the war-torn country, sowing addiction and crime as they went. One passed through Iran, another through Pakistan, but most ultimately transited Russian territory. Consequence? Russian health professionals and demographers speak of an entire generation lost to heroin abuse. Factor in cultural norms that demand smoking like chimneys, drinking like fish, a national diet that seems entirely made of saturated fats, and the national health picture is downright zombie-esque.
With the restoration of central rule in the 2000s under then-and-still-President Vladimir Putin, harsh authoritarianism – complete with violent censorship – entered the mix. Are satirical TV programs using puppets insufficiently slavish to government policy? Force the program off the air and round up the scriptwriters. Are HIV statistics causing national embarrassment? Stop testing for HIV altogether. Are doctors complaining about insufficient supplies to battle COVID? A few doctors “commit suicide” by jumping out of hospital windows.
Officially, Russian COVID caseloads have plateaued, but keep a couple of things in mind.
First, Russia only has even a basic health care system in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Testing within Russia’s two largest cities is thin. Beyond them, it is nearly nonexistent. It isn’t that the Russian government knows what is happening but is lying this time around, but instead that the Russian government has chosen not to find out what is actually happening.
Second, Russia is extremely sparsely populated. Most Russian cities are further apart than even American cities west of the Appalachians. Russia has no national road network; the first paved road linking European Russia to the Pacific Coast was only completed in the 2000s. What Russia does have is a pretty great rail network connecting every population center, excluding the cities clinging to Siberia’s Arctic coast. This would suggest the Russian government would have a very easy time isolating local outbreaks. Stop rail traffic in and out of affected cities and BAM! Viral firebreak.
How many Russian rail interruptions have we seen since COVID started? Zero.
The situation in India isn’t much better.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government initially denied the virus existed in India, and then obliquely supported radical Hindus who claimed drinking cow urine would grant immunity. Government responses were slow and misaligned. Even now, COVID testing in India is criminally rare. The data above represent the results of a testing system, which is the world’s lowest in per capita terms. We can’t even attempt a projection using deaths data since roughly one-quarter of all deaths in India aren’t even recorded. If we had to guess, we’d surmise that India’s actual infection rate is roughly ten times the official figures, but that’s little more than a blind stab. What government action that has occurred broadly falls into the category of “too little, too late.”
One exception: the central government executed a clever scheme of stamping new arrivals in prominent locations with indelible ink, encouraging voluntary two-week self-quarantine. Low cost. High impact. Creative. We like it.
Anywho, India’s “normal” operations generate massive health challenges – challenges COVID has undoubtedly taken full advantage of: densely populated cities with crowded food markets, cities closely proximate to one another, extensive city slums, and massive population movements between the cities and the countryside.
And that’s “just” the demographic and economic geography. Raw economics doesn’t help either. India’s per capita GDP is less than one-fifth of Russia, and Russia’s is less than one-fifth of the United States’. It requires rather haughty expectations to assert India should be able to manage COVID as “well” as the United States.
Please don’t read our criticism of India as a condemnation similar to what Brazil and Russia both deserve. It is not. It is more…fatalism. Brazil and Russia boasted geographic factors arguing for significant viral containment, but both countries chose not to act. In contrast, the deck was always stacked against India, both economically and geographically. Once the virus was seeded within the population, a virus as contagious as COVID was always going to put down roots nationwide, regardless of what the government did. In our view, the Indian government’s relative inaction is less a catastrophe, and more a recognition as to how few tools the government had to face such a massive challenge.
In contrast to Brazil, Russia, and India, the government of South Africa has not been asleep at the wheel. But that hardly frees the country from an intense epidemic. The South Africans have been ground zero for the HIV/AIDS pandemic for approximately thirty years. While there are many things the South African government did wrong in dealing with that virus, one of the things it got right (belatedly) was an advanced public treatment system that included aggressive contact tracing. The South African government applied that skill set to coronavirus. Unfortunately, contact tracing for a high-communicability respiratory virus is a whole different ballgame compared to listing out ones past sexual partners.
Doubly so once one considers the living conditions of South Africa’s Black population. Most Blacks live in ghettoized conditions known as “townships,” and most of the townships have communal toilets and water sources. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the South Africans have yet to devise a functional plan for limiting COVID spread when sheltering at home doesn’t allow for social distancing.
Our biggest concern for South Africa is that here, COVID is likely to have one of the highest lethality rates in the world. One of the darkest chapters of the AIDS pandemic is that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus does precisely what it says. It triggers deficiencies in the immune system, which make sufferers far more vulnerable to other pathogens. One of the darkest chapters of the tuberculosis crisis is the TB bacillus often remains dormant until another infection is in play. HIV and TB often play off one another, making co-infections far more deadly than either would have been alone. The South Africans have become bitter experts on the topic. One-fifth of South African adults carry the HIV virus. About four-fifths carry TB bacillus. Now COVID has arrived.
The only bright spot in the South African epidemic is that unlike the Brazilian, Russian, or Indian governments, the South African authorities are at least attempting to maintain an accurate internal picture of the virus’ march. Testing is as robust as can be hoped for, considering the country’s myriad health challenges. Out of these four countries, we only find South Africa’s data reasonably accurate (probably more accurate than the United States’), and it raises the hope that once a treatment or vaccine becomes available, the South Africans will at least know where to start.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have not dealt with China in this newsletter. In part, it is because the birthplace of COVID is a special case that doesn’t fit well with any other narrative. (We have a bit on that in our East Asian epidemic update.)
To that end, we plan to deal with China in exhaustive detail in our upcoming videoconference on June 29th.
Our next webinar, scheduled for June 29th, will be on China.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
There is no such thing as “Europe.” Yes, there’s this political-economic grouping called the EU, but two of Europe’s most important countries are not members. Yes, there’s this political-military grouping called NATO, but it is functionally run from a different hemisphere. Recent developments might – emphasis on might – change this, but the Europeans aren’t there yet.
With over 30 different political and decision-making systems, there is plenty of room to find fault with any broad assessment. But as regards the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the fact remains that overall, Europe has been moving in the direction of fewer and fewer cases.
(Many, many thanks to the Financial Times for providing the data interface that makes this graphic possible. You can visualize your own data pulls here.)
The early phases of the epidemic were harsh in many places. In large part, it was because the Europeans had, at best incomplete information from which to base their policies. For the Italians and Spanish who suffered through coronavirus’ initial assault, they were simply caught off-guard. The result? Much of Europe enacted lockdowns whose intensity and airtight nature was only surpassed by the 1984-style lockdowns in Wuhan. (In Paris, you had to apply for a government permit to leave your home to shop for food. The permit only lasted for one hour.)
There’s also the issue of vectors. The suspected patient zero in Italy was initially misdiagnosed and so went from the hospital almost directly to a massive soccer game, becoming Europe’s first superspreader. Most people came to and left the game via bus, enabling the virus to spread liberally. A few of those buses went to Spain, which is why Spain became the second hardest-hit country in Europe.
In contrast, Austria and Germany’s superspreaders were a bunch of 20-somethings at ski parties in the Alps. The Austrians and Germans not only had a bit more warning than the Italians and Spaniards, but their epidemics were also among young millennials – a group that COVID doesn’t impact that harshly. The Austrians and Germans locked down their elderly populations, ran a rigorous testing and tracing program, and more or less nipped the problem in the bud.
Of course, despite caseloads moving in the right direction overall, this is not over. The variation of Europe’s COVID policies to date will also define the epidemic’s future:
Germany is playing it safe and has retained its de facto ban on all extra-European travelers until at least August 31st. Considering caseloads in the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East show no signs of dropping, expect this date to get pushed back.
In contrast, consider Portugal. Portugal is one of the many European countries suffering from a terminal demography; its birth rate crashed back in the late 1970s, never recovering, and the Portuguese economy is now a moribund mess. Since Portugal lacks the industrial base of a country like Germany, Portugal’s only growth sector is tourism. COVID killed tourism. Portugal recently released all restrictions in a desperate attempt to forestall what threatens to be an unending economic depression…which means Portugal is one of only three EU countries where caseloads are increasing.
Nor did everyone in Europe follow even remotely similar lockdown protocols. As mentioned earlier, the Europeans were working with incomplete information as the pandemic started, and not everyone came to the same conclusions. The British and Swedes balked at the economic damage full lockdowns would cause, and reasonably believed any effective vaccine would not be available for years. Add in that coronavirus has the highest infection rate of any public health threat since measles and a fairly low mortality rate, and both governments felt containment was a fools’ errand. They opted for management. Both decided to pursue herd immunity in an attempt to build a firewall against the virus within their populations.
Britain ultimately blinked, largely due to the carnage being wrecked in Italy which suggested much higher death counts than initially suspected. The Brits belatedly followed a more traditional lockdown approach. The delay landed the Brits with one of Europe’s highest infection rates as well as a lengthy plateau. It was only in mid-May that the Brits finally got COVID cases bending downward. The Swedes, on the other hand, stuck with the plan. Sweden now faces infection rates among the world’s highest, recently surpassing even the United States.
The real tragedy in Sweden was that knowing what we all knew back in April, the herd immunity strategy wasn’t silly, but instead a calculated risk. The Swedes assumed a functional vaccine would remain unavailable for years, and so concluded that building immunity within the population was the only sustainable route forward. Now it appears a functional vaccine will be available before the end of 2020, with mass distribution beginning (although not being completed) in 2021. The facts as we understand them have changed. Sweden’s sacrifice may have been for nothing.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
