Archives: Situation Reports

The Overseas Report 4 August 2021

by Mike Evans

“Always remember, people have survived all sorts of challenges & struggles in every era. Let’s take the inspiration knowing ‘this too shall pass.’ Life is much more than it is right now.’’ 

– Rajesh Goya

The last Overseas report focused on the two Americas and the neighbouring countries and how the past week has seen an increase in Infections. For this report we will focus on Europe over the past week and see what has happened with regards to new cases and deaths.In the past week the whole of Europe has seen a drop of 8% in new reported cases but a rise of 8% in new reported deaths.

Four countries in Europe have the bulk of the new cases. These are the UK, Russia, Spain and France. Between them they represent 78% of the 872,444 cases reported across the region. As with many countries the Delta variant is the cause of these new surges in infections. In the UK it is estimated that 96% of new infections are from the Delta variant. On the plus side for the UK new cases dropped in the week by 27% compared to the previous 7 days. With regards to deaths in the UK these were also down compared to the previous week by 20%.

The latest surge of infections reached a peak on July 21 when the 7 day average was at 47,101 cases. Since then the country has seen a steady decline in new cases to 26,117 on  2 August.

The UK has now fully vaccinated 57% of its population and just recently relaxed rules for arriving travellers from a number of countries who previously had to quarantine for 10 days. Most of the country’s restrictions have been lifted as well so while cases are still being seem the rise is not as big as previous spikes and the percentage of people vaccinated will help the hospitals cope with any surges they might have.

In Russia where since the early days of the pandemic the figures that were quoted were always felt to be highly inaccurate, have also seen the weekly number of cases fall by 3%. However, the number of deaths has risen by 1%. It is worth noting that the total deaths announced in the week across the whole of Europe was 6,992. Russia had a death toll of 5,463, which equates to around 80% of the total deaths in Europe.

Overall Russia has confirmed 6,334,195 cases of coronavirus and 160,925 deaths, since the start of the pandemic,according to the national coronavirus information centre. Although the number of deaths attributed to Covid 19 is relatively low for such a large country it is interesting to see that Russia’s total excess fatality count since the start of the coronavirus pandemic is around 483,000.

The Kremlin’s ambitions to win soft-power dividends around the world from Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine are being hampered by delays in delivering Sputnik V to foreign buyers clamoring for supplies.

This week, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said his country would seek to replace 8 million planned doses with supplies from other producers by the end of year after delays receiving its initial order.

Countries that embraced Sputnik amid a global rush to secure vaccines are increasingly reporting supply problems with the second component in the two-shot inoculation. In Argentina, a presidential adviser said the shortages put the government at risk as people were unable to receive the second dose within the recommended period of three months after the first.

President Vladimir Putin has touted Sputnik to leaders around the world as part of an ambitious Kremlin drive to put Russia on the map as a major player in the international vaccine business. But difficulties producing the promised shots could relegate it to a secondary-role as rivals from the U.S., Europe and China fill the gap.

Meanwhile in Spain, over the week they have seen infections drop by 11% but regretfully deaths have risen by 152%. Spain recorded 160,929 new infections in the past week compared to 180,204 in the previous 7 days. However, deaths in the previous week were 149 and the past 7 days has seen that figure rise to 375.

Although there has been a slight drop in cases the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has decided to place Spain and the Balearic Islands in the dark red category.

Such a decision comes after the country registered an upsurge in Coronavirus cases, identifying more than 500 infections per 100,000 inhabitants during the last 14 days. Consequently, since Spain has been registering high infection rates, ECDC has advised against all unnecessary travel to the country and to the three islands, Ibiza, Palma, and Minorca.

Spain is one of the EU countries that has been severely affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. However, since the country’s economy significantly relies on the travel and tourism industry, the country decided to open its borders for several arrivals from the European Member States without requiring them to undergo testing and quarantine requirements.

The other country in the top four of the highest new cases of infection is France. In the past week France, unlike the other three countries, has seen the rate of infections rise by 20% and the number of deaths during the week has risen by 54%.

With France facing a fourth COVID wave, the government is making it harder for unvaccinated people to access certain public places. Over the weekend, protesters once again came out in force to show their opposition. The demonstrators feel their personal freedom is in danger, with some talking about a segregated society. Among other things — like relaxing the vaccination requirement for health care workers — they have been demanding that the health pass be withdrawn. But although the number of protesters has been going up every week, they don’t seem to represent the majority of the French. Only between 35% and 40% of the population supports their demands, according to a recent survey by polling institute Ifop.

A “health pass” will soon be required on trains, domestic flights and in long-distance buses, as well as in restaurants and cafes.

The pass consists of a QR code on a smartphone or on a piece of paper, and shows that people have been fully vaccinated, hold a recent negative PCR test result or have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection. The QR code is already mandatory at cultural venues and its use will be extended on August 9, provided France’s highest court of appeal gives its go-ahead. The law will also make a COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for health care workers and those working with vulnerable people. In case of noncompliance, staff are to be suspended without pay.

French authorities are implementing the health pass in an attempt to boost vaccination rates and stem a fourth wave of COVID-19, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant. Daily infection rates have exploded in recent weeks, increasing from roughly 3,000 in early July to now over 20,000.

The government is aiming to reach collective immunity, which virologists believe can be reached with an immunization rate of 80% to 90% of the entire population.

Across the rest of Europe there is a mixed picture with regards to new infections. Around half of the countries listed have shown an increase in new cases, notably Germany, Italy and Denmark, while other significant decreases have been seen in The Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium.

In Italy whilst the number of infections is dropping the number of deaths in the week has increased by 22% compared to the previous seven days. This comes on top of an attack by Cyber hackers on one of the country’s largest health areas, Lazio. Hackers have attacked and blocked an Italian Covid-19 vaccination booking system, a source from Italy’s cybercrime police told CNN on Monday, marking the worst cyberattack the country’s health service has ever seen.

An investigation has been opened into the “very serious” attack on the IT system of the health department of Lazio, one of the most populated regions of Italy and home to capital Rome, according to a source from the Postal and Communications Police, which investigates cybercrime.

The attack by unknown perpetrators began early Sunday, a statement from the regional health department said. The attack, according to investigators, is likely still ongoing.Lazio regional health councillor Alessio D’Amato assured more than 500,000 citizens that had already booked their Covid-19 vaccines through August 13 would still be able to get their shot.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, D’Amato called the attack “the most serious cyber-attack ever carried out on an Italian public administration.” “The technicians are working to safely reactivate the new bookings and no data has been stolen,” D’Amato said in a post on the region’s official Facebook page.

We all hope that this does not hamper the plans to vaccinate their citizens.

Until the next time Stay Safe

Total Cases Worldwide – 199,859,035 

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,253,835 

Total Recovered Worldwide – 180,283,542 

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 15,321,658  (7.7% of the total cases) 

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 184,537,377

Information and resources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/ecdc-places-spain-balearic-islands-in-dark-red-category-warns-against-travel-to-the-country/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=~GBR

https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-france-makes-life-difficult-for-unvaccinated/a-58731429

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/02/business/italy-hackers-covid-vaccine-intl/index.html

The Overseas Situation Report Monday 2 August 2021  

by Mike Evans 

“The world we are experiencing today is a result of our collective consciousness, and if we want a new world, each of us must start taking responsibility for helping create it.”

– Rosemary Fillmore

If anyone thought we were seeing the beginning of the end of the pandemic, the past week has shown that we cannot take this virus for granted. All across the world many countries that thought they were over the worst have seen new cases emerging by the day. The worrying trend in some parts of the world is that deaths are also on the rise after many had seen the numbers reduce in the past few months.

In this report we take a look at the trend over the past week in both Northern and Southern Americas and the countries that lie inbetween and see where the virus is more prevalent than ever and where there does seem to be a slow down of both infections and deaths.

Let’s start by showing what has happened across the whole world in the past 7 days. We have seen an 11% increase in cases compared to the previous week and a 12% increase in deaths due to covid 19.

According to Worldometer.info there were 4,077,798 new cases reported in the past week. To put these figures into context we will look at the individual areas of the world that worldometer uses to show its statistics.

First to North America. This includes the countries of North America, the Central Americas and the Caribbean. In this area there has been a 41% increase in new cases during the past seven days compared to the previous week. This equates to an increased figure of 756,360 compared to 536,921 the week previous.

The USA, Mexico and Cuba account for almost 700,000 of these cases with the rest of the area contributing a relatively small number of cases. In terms of deaths the area recorded an increase of 22% with numbers rising from 4,900 in the previous 7 days to 5,988 in the past week. As with the increased cases, the same three countries accounted for almost 5000 of the deaths.

In the USA, weekly reported cases have risen by 51%, from 354,993 to 534,699. The increase in cases has also seen an  increase of 20%  in deaths in the past week from 1862 in the previous 7 days to 2228. The spread of the highly contagious Delta variant is largely responsible for the uptick in cases. This week we saw the President set out a new plan to combat this surge in new cases. President Joe Biden announced that all federal employees must attest to being vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols including regular testing, masking and other mitigation measures. These requirements will apply to military and civilian Defense Department personnel, and the department is also considering adding Covid-19 vaccines to the list of required vaccines for military personnel, the Pentagon said.

“With freedom comes responsibility,” Biden said. “So, please, exercise responsible judgment. Get vaccinated — for yourself, for the people you love, for your country.” Biden called on states and local governments to give each newly fully-vaccinated person $100 as an incentive to get more people inoculated.

“If incentives help us beat this virus, I believe we should use them,” the President said. “We all benefit if we can get more people vaccinated.”

Meanwhile its Northern neighbour Canada also saw a large increase of 56% in the week although in terms of actual numbers the rise was not as significant as the US. Canada’s top health officials are warning that Canada could be seeing the beginning of a fourth COVID-19 wave driven by the more infectious delta variant. The seriousness of the pandemic’s resurgence will depend largely on vaccination coverage — especially as provinces move forward with reopening plans — Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said today. “I think we are in a slightly precarious period at the moment, in between these people trying to get the vaccines in and reopening,” Tam said. “As soon as that balance is tipped, and it wouldn’t take very much with a highly transmissible virus, you’re going to see an uptick in cases.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada released data on Friday that show fully vaccinated Canadians have accounted for less than one per cent of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations since December. Of the entire population eligible to receive a vaccine, 81 per cent have received one dose and 66 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Further south in the Caribbean cases have risen dramatically in the past week although again with the populations of these countries the actual number of new cases is relatively small compared to the US.

The French owned territory of Guadalupe has followed France in seeing a big rise in cases from just 406 in the previous week to 1,724 in the past 7 days. Of the 29 Caribbean Islands that provide figures only Barbados, Dominican Republic, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica and Dominica have seen a drop in new cases in the past week. Other notable increases have come from Cuba, Martinique and Trinidad & Tobago. Apart from Haiti and Cuba the region does not seem to be experiencing the issue of deaths in the same way as the Northern American countries are in the past week.

Further south in the continent and we see that the countries that make up South America are faring slightly better than their northern neighbours in the past week. The past week saw a drop of 11% in reported cases compared to the previous 7 days. Brazil accounts for more than 50% of all the new cases with 2457,830. This is a drop of 11% on the previous week. The trend continues in deaths across the region with a drop of 10% week on week.

Only Guyana showed a rise in new cases with an increase of 22% which equates from 499 the previous week to 608 in the past seven days. Regretfully they have also seen a 55% increase in deaths from 11 in the previous week to 17 in the past seven days.

Colombia, which had seen new cases and deaths rise significantly over the past month, saw a dramatic drop of 32% in cases and 21% in deaths in the past week.

The drop in new infections across the region comes despite only Uruguay and Chile having vaccinated almost 65% of its population. The rest of the continent has been slow to vaccinate and currently only Colombia with 23% fully vaccinated is next highest followed by Brazil with 19% of its population fully vaccinated. It is a disturbing feature that both Paraguay and Venezuela have fully vaccinated just 4%  of their populations.

Unlike the rest of the world where the Delta variant is the major threat in South America the Lambda variant has been wreaking havoc with many of the South American countries.

In Peru, which has the highest deaths per capita across the whole world, this variant is responsible for almost all the cases in Peru. The WHO classified this variant as C.37 as a “variant of interest” after it appeared in a number of countries simultaneously. The virologist Pablo Tsukayama and his team at Lima’s Cayetano Heredia University have traced the evolution of the lambda variant in Peru for months after identifying it through genome testing. Lambda spread more quickly than variants deemed far more dangerous by the WHO out of the way, even prevailing over the gamma variant, which had run rampant in neighboring Brazil.

“We had 200 lambda infections in December,” said Tsukayama. “By the end of March, it made up half of all samples taken in Lima. [In June, it was] more than 80% of all infections nationwide. Lambda has become the dominant variant in Peru in a very short period of time.”

Tsukayama said lambda was more transmissible, which had helped it spread so quickly in Peru. “With  the highest mortality rates in the world, we are the country that has struggled most when it comes to the coronavirus,” he said. “Therefore, it is probably no wonder that the new variant has gotten its start here.” By the end of July, COVID-19 deaths in Peru had surpassed 195,000.

The drop in recorded cases in the past week is good news for Peru, as is the 22% decrease in deaths but until many more of their citizens get fully vaccinated these figures will remain very high.

We can all hope that those wealthy nations with surplus vaccines continue to send them to the poorer nations so the pandemic can be stopped across the world and not just in certain areas of the world.

Until the next time, Stay Safe. 

Total Cases Worldwide – 198,879,142 

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,238,503 

Total Recovered Worldwide – 179,521,450 

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 15,119,189 (7.6% of the total cases) 

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 183,759,953

Information and resources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/29/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-could-be-start-of-4th-wave-1.6123894

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

The Overseas Situation Report Friday 30 July 2021

by Mike Evans

“Creating better humans will always be more important than creating smarter machines.”  

– Gary Kasparov

We have all heard of how the pandemic has had an effect on businesses around the world. Some against the odds have prospered and some like Amazon and Netflix have seen profits soar. However, across the world there are many who have seen their livelihood disappear during the pandemic. For many businesses the need to downsize has also taken a toll on their ability to employ people. One of the biggest issues to come out of the Covid 19 era is the lack of employment opportunities to the young.

In a recent report by Eurostat data they found that 1 in 6 young adults in the European Union were not in employment, education or training (NEET) in 2020. On closer investigation, young women were more affected than men. In the EU the report found that The Czech Republic and the Netherlands had the lowest NEET rates. The share of NEET young people had been falling since 2013. But 2020 saw the figures go in the other direction. “This sudden change reflects the economic downturn related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

This report echoes much the same as the report by the World Economic Forum called The Future of Jobs. After years of growing income inequality, concerns about technology-driven displacement of jobs, and rising societal discord globally, the combined health and economic shocks of 2020 have put economies into freefall, disrupted labour markets and fully revealed the inadequacies of our social contracts. Millions of individuals globally have lost their livelihoods and millions more are at risk from the global recession, structural change to the economy and further automation. Additionally, the pandemic and the subsequent recession have impacted most of those communities which were already at a disadvantage.

The report’s key findings include:

The pace of technology adoption is expected to remain unabated and may accelerate in some areas. The adoption of cloud computing, big data and e-commerce remain high priorities for business leaders, following a trend established in previous years. However, there has also been a significant rise in interest for encryption, non-humanoid robots and artificial intelligence.

Automation, in tandem with the COVID-19 recession, is creating a ‘double-disruption’ scenario for workers. In addition to the current disruption from the pandemic-induced lockdowns and economic contraction, technological adoption by companies will transform tasks, jobs and skills by 2025. Forty Three percent of businesses surveyed indicate that they are set to reduce their workforce due to technology integration, 41% plan to expand their use of contractors for task-specialized work, and 34% plan to expand their workforce due to technology integration.

By 2025, the time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will be equal. A significant share of companies also expect to make changes to locations, their value chains, and the size of their workforce due to factors beyond technology in the next five years. Although the number of jobs destroyed will be surpassed by the number of ‘jobs of tomorrow’ created, in contrast to previous years, job creation is slowing while job destruction accelerates.

Employers expect that by 2025, increasingly redundant roles will decline from being 15.4% of the workforce to 9% (6.4% decline), and that emerging professions will grow from 7.8% to 13.5% (5.7% growth) of the total employee base of company respondents. Based on these figures, we estimate that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

Skills gaps continue to be high as in demand skills across jobs change in the next five years.

The top skills and skill groups which employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025 include groups such as critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving, and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. On average, companies estimate that around 40% of workers will require reskilling of six months or less and 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp uptake from 65% in 2018. – The future of work has already arrived for a large majority of the online white-collar workforce. Eighty-four percent of employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes, including a significant expansion of remote work—with the potential to move 44% of their workforce to operate remotely. To address concerns about productivity and well-being, about one-third of all employers expect to also take steps to create a sense of community, connection and belonging among employees through digital tools, and to tackle the well-being challenges posed by the shift to remote work.

In the absence of proactive efforts, inequality is likely to be exacerbated by the dual impact of technology and the pandemic recession. Jobs held by lower wage workers, women and younger workers were more deeply impacted in the first phase of the economic contraction. Comparing the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 on individuals with lower education levels to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, the impact today is far more significant and more likely to deepen existing inequalities. Online learning and training is on the rise but looks different for those in employment and those who are unemployed.

There has been a four-fold increase in the numbers of individuals seeking out opportunities for learning online through their own initiative, a five-fold increase in employer provision of online learning opportunities to their workers and a nine-fold enrolment increase for learners accessing online learning through government programmes.

Those in employment are placing larger emphasis on personal development courses, which have seen 88% growth among that population. Those who are unemployed have placed greater emphasis on learning digital skills such as data analysis, computer science and information technology.

The window of opportunity to reskill and upskill workers has become shorter in the newly constrained labour market. This applies to workers who are likely to stay in their roles as well as those who risk losing their roles due to rising recession-related unemployment and can no longer expect to retrain at work. For those workers set to remain in their roles, the share of core skills that will change in the next five years is 40%, and 50% of all employees will need re-skilling (up 4%).

The public sector needs to provide stronger support for re-skilling and up-skilling for at-risk or displaced workers. Currently, only 21% of businesses report being able to make use of public funds to support their employees through reskilling and upskilling. The public sector will need to create incentives for investments in the markets and jobs of tomorrow; provide stronger safety nets for displaced workers in the midst of job transitions; and to decisively tackle long delayed improvements to education and training systems. Additionally, it will be important for governments to consider the longer-term labour market implications of maintaining, withdrawing or partly continuing the strong COVID-19 crisis support they are providing to support wages and maintain jobs in most advanced economies.

As the world starts to come out of the isolation that Covid 19 has forced on almost every country, the need to work will never be stronger especially for those who are now leaving school. With the world almost being on “stop sell” for 19 months it remains to be seem how long it is before those who have never had a job find the job which will help fulfill their dreams in a post covid world.

Until the next time stay safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 196,988,941

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,208,841 

Total Recovered Worldwide – 178,318,859 

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 14,461,241 (7.3% of the total cases) 

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 182,527,700

Information and resources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/digest