More evidence Pangolin not intermediary in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans

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By Susha Cheriyedath, M.Sc.Oct 4 2020

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent for the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that has affected more than 35 million people and caused more than 1 million global deaths to date. The unprecedented repercussions of the pandemic have forced scientists to study the virus and its mechanism of infection closely in order to find a way to contain the spread of this virus through vaccination or treat affected people with effective therapeutic strategies that will help bring down the death rate.

Many of these efforts are focused on identifying the intermediate animal that is potentially involved in the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans. Several works found evidence for pangolin being the intermediary between the virus and humans based on the presence of virus related to SARS-CoV-2 in Malayan pangolins, ACE2 receptor polymorphism, and the similarities in sequence between the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of pangolin and human Sarbecoviruses.

However, some studies later reported that the binding affinity of the pangolin ACE2 receptor for the RBD of the virus is low. In a recent paper published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, researchers from the University of Barcelona, Spain; Xiamen University, China; and IHU-Méditerranée Infection and CNRS, France, provided more evidence to prove why pangolin cannot be the intermediate animal in SARS-CoV-2 transmission to humans.

Study: COVID-19: Time to exonerate the pangolin from the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Image Credit: Vickey Chauhan

The team proposed a different model named the ‘circulation model’ to illustrate how SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses could have circulated in different species, including humans, before COVID-19 emerged.

While many previous studies indicated that bats and pangolins were the culprits in COVID-19 transmission to humans, none of the studies clarified the actual role of these animals in the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is suspected of having emerged from bats and was said to be closely related to the Sarbecoviruses MN996532_raTG13 and RmYN02 from the Chinese horseshoe bats Rhinolophus affinis and Rhinolophus malayanus, respectively.

Intermediate Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus affinis). Image Credit: Binturong-tonoscarpe / Shutterstock
Genomic analysis shows SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in bats for many decades

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The findings of this study did not agree with the currently proposed spillover model for zoonotic emergence. Also, the in-depth genomic analysis failed to support recombination in SARS-CoV-2 and showed that it has been circulating in bats for several decades now. Moreover, the drawback of metagenomic analyses that some previous studies performed is that there is not enough evidence to show that different parts come from the same virus and the recombinants came from artifactual assembly mosaics.

The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 binds to the human ACE2 molecules on the cell surface. The analysis of ACE2 3D structures indicated that the amino acids found in the 30–41, 82–93, and 353–358 regions play a key role in interactions with the viral S1 spike protein. This set off a series of in silico analyses of ACE2 polymorphism that aimed at predicting which putative intermediate host animal might bind best to the ACE2 receptor so as to capture a SARS-CoV-2-like virus that is transmissible to humans.

Other than pangolin, the virus was shown to bind to the ACE2 receptor from a host of animals, including Chinese horseshoe bats, cats, civets, turtles, monkeys, ferrets, dogs, Chinese hamsters, cows, buffaloes, sheep, swine, and pigeons. According to the researchers, the virus does not preadapt to the host; instead, there is a host-driven selection of viruses post-exposure that can evade immune surveillance. The virus is already present in humans or animal species close to humans. A random event like a mutation suddenly makes it pathogenic or more invasive.

“According to the circulation model, what really prepares the ground for the epidemic is simply an accidental event, i.e., a mutation, recombination or reassortment in the virus genome.”

Circulation model puts focus back on human activities

The authors feel that the actual triggers for epidemics and pandemics lie in the organization of the society and human/animal contacts, and amplification loops offered by the human society, such as land conversion, contacts, markets, mobility, and international trade.

According to the researchers, a significant positive aspect of the circulation model is that the focus of the model is on human activities and not wildlife, and if we want to prevent future pandemics like these, we must reconsider the manner in which we interact with nature. They concluded that bats, pangolins, and other animals are not responsible for the epidemics or pandemics humans are facing right now. Blaming such infectious diseases on zoonotic emergence caused by wildlife may only result in unnecessary culling and mass slaughter leading to loss of biodiversity.
Journal reference:

Roger Frutos, Jordi Serra-Cobo, Tianmu Chen, Christian A. Devaux, COVID-19: Time to exonerate the pangolin from the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans, Infection, Genetics and Evolution, Volume 84, 2020, 104493, ISSN 1567-1348, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2020.104493, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567134820303245




Written by Susha Cheriyedath has a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Chemistry and Master of Science (M.Sc) degree in Biochemistry from the University of Calicut, India. She always had a keen interest in medical and health science. As part of her masters degree, she specialized in Biochemistry, with an emphasis on Microbiology, Physiology, Biotechnology, and Nutrition. In her spare time, she loves to cook up a storm in the kitchen with her super-messy baking experiments.

86 percent of the UK's COVID-19 patients have no symptoms

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By Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, BSN Oct 9 2020

Many people who contract the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), develop only mild and moderate symptoms. A small fraction of those infected develop severe symptoms, which usually occur in people who are at higher risk due to comorbidities.

Study: Three Quarters of People with SARS-CoV-2 Infection are Asymptomatic: Analysis of English Household Survey Data. Image Credit: Noiel / Shutterstock

Now, a new study by researchers at the University College London revealed that 86 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 did not have virus symptoms, such as cough, fever, and loss of taste or smell. The study findings, collected by the Office for National Statistics, the U.K. statistics body, highlight the role of asymptomatic patients in the spread of the virus.

The data collecting body gathered information about coronavirus testing from thousands of British households during the pandemic—the asked households whether they developed symptoms or not.


“To reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, it is important to identify those who are infectious. However, little is known about what proportion of infectious people are asymptomatic and potential “silent” transmitters. We evaluated the value of COVID-19 symptoms as a marker for SARS-CoV-2 infection from a representative English survey,” the authors wrote in the paper.

COVID-19 symptoms among infected people

The study, published in the journal Clinical Epidemiology, utilized data from the Coronavirus Infection Survey, an extensive population-based survey looking at the link between coronavirus symptoms and test results.

Over 36,000 people living in Northern Ireland, England, and Wales were included in the study, who were tested from April to June. Of the total participants, 0.32 percent of 115 people had a positive test result. From there, the team focused on these individuals to determine specific symptoms.

Of the 115 people who tested positive with SARS-CoV-2, 16 or 13.9 percent reported symptoms, while 99 people or 86.1 percent of the patients, did not report any specific symptoms on the day of the test.

Further, 27 or 23.5 percent were symptomatic, and 88 or 76.5 percent did not manifest symptoms on the day of the test.

“COVID-19 symptoms are poor markers of SARS-CoV-2. Thus, 76.5% of this random sample, which tested positive reported no symptoms, and 86.1% reported none of those specific to COVID-19. A more widespread testing program is necessary to capture “silent” transmission and potentially prevent and reduce future outbreaks,” the team concluded in the study.

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The researchers believe that the study findings may provide critical information for ongoing and future testing programs.

“The fact that so many people who tested positive were asymptomatic on the day of a positive test result calls for a change to future testing strategies. More widespread testing will help to capture “silent” transmission and potentially prevent future outbreaks,” Professor Irene Petersen from UCL Epidemiology & Health Care, said.

“Future testing programs should involve frequent testing of a wider group of individuals, not just symptomatic cases, especially in high-risk settings or places where many people work or live close together such as meat factories or university halls. In the case of university halls, it may be particularly relevant to test all students before they go home for Christmas,” the added.

He also explained that pooled testing could impose a widespread testing strategy, where multiple tests can be grouped into one analysis. This way, they could save time and money rather than doing individual tests.
COVID-19 situation

The United Kingdom reports a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, which topped more than 564,000 cases and at last 42,000 deaths. Health minister Matt Hancock warned that the U.K. is reporting skyrocketing cases. On Oct. 8, more than 17,540 new daily COVID-19 cases were recorded, which is up by more than 3,000 from the previous day.

Also, 77 people had died after testing positive for COVID-19 within 28 days. The number of patients hospitalized due to the infection increased to a whopping 3,044 from 2,944 the previous day.

Globally, the number of cases has surpassed 36.44 million and the death toll has now reached over 1 million.
Sources:

University College London. (2020). https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/oct/symptoms-covid-19-are-poor-marker-infection

COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) - https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Journal reference:

Peterson, I., and Phillips, A. (2020). Three-Quarters of People with SARS-CoV-2 Infection are Asymptomatic: Analysis of English Household Survey Data. Clinical Epidemiology. https://www.dovepress.com/three-quarters-of-people-with-sars-cov-2-infection-are-asymptomatic-an-peer-reviewed-article-CLEP

Written by
Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo is a nurse by profession and a writer by heart. She graduated with honors (Cum Laude) for her Bachelor of Nursing degree at the University of Baguio, Philippines. She is currently completing her Master's Degree where she specialized in Maternal and Child Nursing and worked as a clinical instructor and educator in the School of Nursing at the University of Baguio.

JP Morgan makes $30-billion commitment to fight racial inequality

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, earned $36.4 billion in profit last year.

BY IRINA SLAV · OCTOBER 8, 2020

JP Morgan has committed $30 billion to tackle racial inequality through loans, investments, and direct funding.

CNN’s Jazmin Goodwin reported:

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is committing $30 billion over the next five years to promote racial equality.

“Systemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history,” said JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon in a news release. “We can do more and do better to break down systems that have propagated racism and widespread economic inequality, especially for Black and Latinx people. It’s long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way.”

Imani Moise from Reuters wrote:

The initiative seeks to provide $8 billion in new mortgages for Black and Latino borrowers, $14 billion in loans for affording housing projects, $2 billion in small business loans, and $2 billion in philanthropy.

In comparison, Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc have made similar pledges totaling about $1 billion each.

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, earned $36.4 billion in profit last year.

Bloomberg’s Michelle F Davis noted:

The changes are the culmination of months of discussions about how to address racial inequity sparked by this summer’s nationwide protests in the U.S. after the police killing of George Floyd. JPMorgan and other big U.S. banks have been pressured to help remedy race-based economic gaps the industry helped create. Firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. have promised to improve diversity among their own ranks.

The Americans who most need a stimulus

One group of Americans needs a fresh stimulus package more than any other: The 2.4 million Americans — and rising — who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Felix Salmon, Courtenay Brown, Dion Rabouin

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals


One group of Americans needs a fresh stimulus package more than any other: The 2.4 million Americans — and rising — who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Why it matters: While the economic recession looks like it ended in April, rising long-term unemployment acts as a drag on the broader economy. Without new stimulus, the number of jobless could end up being almost as bad as the Great Recession of 2008-9.
"The longer people are unemployed, the more they run down assets and savings and that starts to really impact consumption and their ability to spend," Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, a Harvard economics professor, tells Axios.

The backstory:

 In April, for the first time since 2001, fewer than 1 million people were unemployed for more than six months.

That same month, the surge of coronavirus-related layoffs peaked. Today almost 1.5 million of those laid-off workers are still unemployed, and the ranks of the long-term jobless are rising at a rate not seen since the financial crisis.

The biggest job losses have been in leisure and hospitality, where the workforce is 3.8 million people smaller than it was in February. The food services industry is down 2.3 million jobs.

What they're saying: Harvard projections show long-term unemployment peaking in early 2021. Depending on the speed of the recovery, it's likely to reach 3.9 million people at best — and 5.1 million in a worst-case scenario.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s, sees a peak of 5 million long-term unemployed as a baseline scenario, cautioning that with stimulus talks having broken down, the number could be more than double that “if we botch it.”

"If we provide stimulus, provide checks, provide unemployment insurance — all these things will support the economy and help businesses get back on their feet and help people get back to work. By not doing it, we're basically committing ourselves to a slower recovery, or even a backslide potentially."— Eliza Forsythe, economics professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

In normal times, the longer you're out of work, the more difficult it becomes to find a job. Employers don't like to hire people with large gaps on their résumé, or whose skills might be outdated or rusty.

Those rules don't necessarily apply in a pandemic. "Scarring effects on the labor force have also been less severe than feared," wrote Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle in a research note this week.

"Unemployment has fallen sharply, and most of the remaining job losers are either still on temporary layoff or are in industries that should largely recover with a vaccine. In addition, labor demand has rebounded much more quickly than last cycle, reducing the risk of widespread long-term unemployment."

The other side: There are 4.8 million Americans who are weeks away from being considered long-term unemployed, and more than 1 million have filed initial jobless claims (including the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program) every week for the past six months.
So, "where long-term unemployment peaks depends on the virus and depends on policy," Zandi says.

Where it stands: The stock market, near record highs, is running on Fed liquidity and looking past the pandemic to an economy that has fully recovered and has put the coronavirus squarely in the rear-view mirror. But that means 2022 at the earliest.

The bottom line: We're only at the end of the beginning of the pandemic. Right now it's mostly too early to tell which jobs are simply going into hibernation for the duration of the crisis, and which ones are gone forever.

Fearing Biden tax hikes, wealthy Americans rush to change estate plans




(Reuters) - Wealthy Americans are scrambling to change their estate plans before year-end, worried that Democrat Joe Biden will win the U.S. presidential election and raise taxes, say financial advisers to the moneyed set.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden waves as he arrives to speak at a carpenters union in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., October 8, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The biggest concern is that the White House and Congress could get swept up in a “Blue Wave” of Democratic wins that give Biden the power to propose and pass a sweeping set of tax reforms.

Wealthy people are especially nervous that an exemption allowing individuals to leave up to $11.58 million to heirs, free of estate or gift taxes, could be cut before it expires in 2025.

Democrats want to raise estate taxes to the “historical norm,” according to the party’s platform. That could mean slashing the exemption to $5.49 million, the figure in place before Republican President Donald Trump signed a sweeping tax bill that included benefits for corporations and wealthy Americans in 2017, advisers said.

It is unclear how the election will go or what, if any, tax reform will pass. But as Biden has climbed in the polls, rich people are rushing to set up trusts and revise existing ones before year-end to avoid 2021 tax consequences, advisers said.

“The $11.58 million question is, ‘What is going to happen to the gift and estate tax exclusion?’” said Toni Ann Kruse, a New York estates lawyer who counsels ultra-high net worth people. “We don’t know who will win the election or control the House or Senate - and all of those factors will play into what could happen.”

Biden would also “return the estate tax to 2009 levels” to fund paid family and medical leave, according to his website.

His plan also includes raising taxes on long-term capital gains, which is the profit earned by selling assets whose values have appreciated. Taxpayers with income above $1 million would pay a 39.6% income tax on the profit, instead of the current tiered approach that maxes out at 20% for individuals with $441,450 or more income.

In a statement, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates reiterated the candidate’s intent to change tax law in ways that benefit less affluent people.

“Joe Biden is running to rebuild the backbone of this nation - the American middle class - by ensuring that our economy rewards work and not just wealth,” he said.

The uptick in requests for estate changes intensified in June when Biden pulled ahead of Trump in polling, advisers said. Several firms said they have been overwhelmed by requests since then, and expect business to pick up more toward the end of the year.

Tax-related workflow is triple the norm at Miller Samuel Inc, a New York-based real estate appraisal firm, said Chief Executive Jonathan Miller.

“We are flooded with requests for gift and estate tax appraisals right now,” he said.

New York estate and tax planning lawyer Philip Michaels has added around 15 high net worth clients during the last several months who are revising estate plans.

Rockefeller Capital Management, a family office in New York, is holding virtual events for customers while working with legal and tax advisers to sort through nuances of possible legislation, said Joe Roberts, Senior Wealth Strategist.

Clients are worried about a “quick turn and drastic departure” from the status quo, Roberts said.

At the same time, some customers are worried about making decisions too early. That is because trusts created to use lifetime exemptions are not easily unwound.

“It’s a lot of money to give away,” Indianapolis estate planning lawyer John Olivieri said of some of his clients. “People are struggling with, ‘Do I really want to give this away?’”

Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Nick Zieminski

Investors' bets on a Democratic sweep grow after Biden debate performance

By April Joyner, David Randall

TRUMP'S OTHER BASE (SO HE THINKS)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The debate between Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, marred by frequent interruptions and name-calling, did little to enlighten the electorate. But it was enough to turn the consensus on Wall Street toward Biden.

The fractious Sept. 29 faceoff led to a jump in Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump in several national polls, fueling moves in a broad range of assets sensitive to a decisive Democratic victory, from clean energy companies and U.S. govenrment bonds to foreign exchange derivatives that hedge against market volatility.

A second debate - which may be delayed or not take place at all - “is critical for the president, but I don’t think it matters at all to Biden. He can coast to the election,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group.

The former vice president opened up a 10-point advantage among likely voters in an Oct. 3 poll by Reuters/Ipsos, a 1 to 2 point increase over his previous lead, following the presidential debate.

Despite the skepticism about opinion polls after Trump’s surprise win in 2016, investors have since increased bets that the Democrat will have a clearcut victory.

“Our highest probability is of a Biden win and a Democratic sweep and that keeps increasing,” said John Briggs, Americas head of strategy at NatWest Markets. “We had some client pushback on that idea but after the debate that turned around quite a bit.”


Betting markets: Biden's lead


Shares of alternative energy companies, which analysts expect to prosper from policies under a Biden administration, have climbed sharply since the debate.

In currency markets, bets on post-election volatility are waning - evidence of investors positioning for a strong win for the Democrat. In Treasury markets, a bout of selling on expectations of a hefty Biden-led stimulus package has helped send yields to their highest levels in months.

“Pence delivered his messaging better than Trump, but I want to see how Trump performs in the next debate,” said Akira Takei, global fixed income fund manager at Asset Management One in Tokyo, after Wednesday’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. “It may appear that Biden has the lead, but I don’t trust the opinion polls.”


A Biden victory is far from a foregone conclusion, and investors continue to hedge their bets. The Democratic candidate’s widening lead, for example, has done little to dispel expectations of post-election volatility in stock options, which continue to anticipate market swings persisting into the end of the year.

“The (options) market is just pricing in that question mark,” said Jon Cherry, global head of options at Northern Trust Capital Markets in Chicago.

Investors also remain on guard against possible reversals in sentiment in the race. Robert Phipps, director at Per Stirling Capital Management in Austin, Texas, is holding around a fifth of his portfolio in cash.

“Those polls measure the popular vote,” Phipps said. “The popular vote doesn’t decide the presidency.”

Positioning for U.S. election volatility



A basket of stocks tracked by JPMorgan Chase & Co, which includes green technology and trade-linked companies that would likely benefit from Democratic policies, has outperformed a basket of companies that could be hurt by a Biden presidency by about 10% between early September and Wednesday, according to a Reuters analysis.

Per Stirling’s Phipps said his portfolio’s biggest winners had been in the alternative energy space. “Every time Biden’s poll numbers go up, those investments go up,” he said.

The rising probability of a Democratic takeover of Washington by winning the presidency and control of the Senate has also helped push U.S. Treasuries out of a range in anticipation of Democrats passing a broad stimulus plan..

Yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries could rise as high as 1.25% with a Biden victory, up from its current level around 0.75%, NatWest’s Briggs said.


The Biden bump


“There’s a narrative in Treasuries that there’s a greater chance of a blue sweep, which means that a stimulus package will come January or February,” said Greg Staples, head of fixed income at DWS Group.

At the same time, implied volatility in the currency markets - a measure of how much investors expect spot prices to move in a given time frame - are falling, suggesting that markets now believe there is a lower chance that the election result will be disputed or drawn out..

“Markets don’t see much risk of a serious electoral challenge if Biden looks to be winning with a decisive lead – too many state outcomes would have to be reversed,” said Steve Englander, head of global G10 FX research at Standard Chartered in New York, in a note to clients.


Reporting by April Joyner and David Randall; Additional reporting and graphics by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Ira Iosebashvili and Cynthia Osterman

"That's A Dictator": Foreign Election Experts Say Trump Is Engaging In Voter Suppression And Intimidation

“I’ve never thought in my eight years of working in this industry, that I would be worried about election violence in the US in this day and age,” one former election observer said, “but now I wouldn’t put it past us.”

David Mack BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on October 6, 2020

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Donald J. Trump stands on the Truman Balcony at the White House after receiving treatments for the coronavirus at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday.

In recent years, international election observers have monitored tumultuous votes in countries like Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Russia. This year, they're turning their attention back again to the US, a place not normally considered a democracy in danger but looking increasingly chaotic.

Members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began flying into Washington, DC, last week to prepare for Election Day. But just hours after roughly a dozen OSCE experts officially began working on Sept. 29, the US witnessed one of the ugliest debates in its history — peppered with claims from the sitting president that the election results will be fraudulent unless he wins.

That was even before the president was rushed to hospital on Friday, having contracted a deadly virus, and details of his health were hidden from the public, further fueling the uncertainty heading into the contentious vote.

Over the course of 90 minutes during last week’s debate, President Donald Trump heckled and lied with abandon. He declined to denounce white supremacists. He mocked the drug addiction of the living son of opponent Joe Biden as the former vice president discussed his dead son. He framed the death of a suspected shooter in Portland, Oregon, as an extrajudicial killing, boasting he had sent in US Marshals who “took care of business.” And he once again sought to undermine public faith in the integrity of the election by falsely claiming there’s “going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen.”

“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen,” Trump said, declining once again to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

Such language is “usually something that’s criticized by election observers around the world,” said Susan Hyde, a University of California, Berkeley, political science professor who studies election observers and who previously worked as one in seven countries. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that would have caught their attention.”

“That’s a dictator,” said one American who previously monitored elections across three continents but who asked not to be named because she didn’t want to be seen to be speaking for her current employer.

“That’s what we see in African countries consistently,” she said, going on to talk specifically about Zimbabwe.



“I’ve never thought in my eight years of working in this industry, that I would be worried about election violence in the US in this day and age,” she added, “but now I wouldn’t put it past us.”

Katya Andrusz, a spokesperson for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, declined to comment on the current US election, stressing that the organization’s observers, who have been monitoring US elections for 20 years, always remain politically neutral.

Speaking about democracy more broadly, though, she underscored the importance of public confidence in the vote.

"In any country, trust in the process is absolutely vital and if there is anything that’s undermining trust, it’s not healthy for a democracy,” Andrusz said. “A big part of democratic elections is the trust in them, that the system works, that your vote counts.

“If people don’t believe that’s the case, it can weaken public confidence in the democratic process itself.”

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images
A member of the White House cleaning staff sanitizes the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Monday.

Of course, the events of the last few days surrounding the coronavirus outbreak inside the White House have thrown yet another spanner into a tumultuous election season. With doctors warning Trump may still experience severe symptoms of COVID-19 in the days to come, there remains speculation of what might happen if he should die or become too ill to continue in the election — chatter Trump sought to squash on Monday night with a publicized return to the White House from his hospital bed designed to show him as every bit the Strongman leader.

In a stunt that Atlantic writer and democracy historian Anne Applebaum compared to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Trump stood on the balcony of the White House while still infected, removed his mask, and saluted for the cameras. A White House video of the event, set to booming orchestral music befitting an action film, was released within the hour.

“Anyone hailing from an authoritarian country is horrified by that Trump video, as should be anyone who values democracy over demagoguery,” said Garry Kasparov — the Russian chess grandmaster, chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and Renew Democracy Initiative — on Twitter. “The staging, boasting, the disregard for people’s lives. He won’t change and he must go.”

Interest in the US election around the world remains feverish, with international broadcasters airing last week’s debate live (causing translators to struggle) and foreign news sites often leading with the latest political developments.

While international attention is high, global opinions of the US are falling to low levels. A September Pew Research Center survey of 13 nations found that in several countries, the number of people with a positive view of the US was lower than at any point in their almost two decades of polling. The decline is driven in part by perceptions of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but also by views of Trump himself. Fewer than 1 in 10 Belgians, for example, have confidence that the US president will do the right thing.

As the president continues to upend democratic norms and undermine public faith in the integrity of the election, experts told BuzzFeed News they fear not only for the US image abroad, but for the US itself.

“Especially from a country that has been promoting election observation, promoting democracy, been a beacon of democracy around the world and thought it was in a position to send observers to other countries to instruct them in the right ways to run elections, it’s discouraging,” said Judith Kelley, the dean of the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy, who has studied such observers extensively. “It’s very, very discouraging.”

Kelly said Trump’s comments at the debate would likely alarm election observers, who would see his attempts to undermine public confidence in the election as a form of voter suppression.

“I also think that Trump was indirectly urging his supporters to engage in voter intimidation and he was indirectly himself engaging in voter suppression by simply discouraging people from believing that this election would matter, that their ballot would be counted,” she said. “Why show up if you think your vote wouldn’t count?”

The president’s debate comments came less than a week after the Trump campaign released a video in which his son Donald Trump Jr. called for supporters to volunteer as partisan election observers, which are permitted under the law. Except Trump Jr. framed his callout in highly militaristic terms. “We need every able-bodied man and woman to join Army for Trump’s election security operation,” he said, calling for people to “defend” their ballots and “enlist.”

“President Trump is going to win. Don’t let them steal it,” Trump Jr. said.

A week before that, supporters of the president disrupted early voting at a site in Virginia, chanting slogans. Some voters and election workers felt intimidated by the group and had to be provided escorts, according to officials.

“You can have voter intimidation without guns,” said John Campbell, who lives in nearby Alexandria and who, as US ambassador to Nigeria, oversaw the team of American diplomats who monitored that country’s 2007 election.

Campbell noted that in Nigeria it is not uncommon for gangs of political supporters to try to intimidate one another. “It’s one of the reasons why elections are very often so violent,” he said, “particularly in the run-up.”

Eric Bjornlund— the board chair of the Election Reformers Network and president of Democracy International, which consults internationally on issues of governance and politics — told BuzzFeed News that “armed politically affiliated gangs” were a feature in some South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

“There’s a huge tradition of these armed thugs that are affiliated with parties that go around and try to prevent people from voting,” he said. “They would say they’re providing security.”

Bjornlund said he now fears their emergence in the US political arena.

"It’s pretty likely that in another country, if people who are not official police or security forces or rather militia or self-appointed election monitors that are armed and going to polling places, it’s pretty clear we would have a problem with that as the international community and we would call it out,” he said.

Bryan Woolston / Reuters
A Trump supporter stands with far-right activists and self-described militia members during a rally on the day of the Kentucky Derby horse race in Louisville on Sept. 5.

Kelley, the Duke Sanford dean, said it is possible that some Trump supporters may see his comments as a call to arms, given the presence over the summer of armed, right-wing, self-described militias at political demonstrations. This included the Proud Boys group, whom Trump told at the debate to “stand by” and whose members have been charged with violent offenses at such protests.

Trump’s illness and hospitalization for COVID-19 was also seen by Trump supporters who believe in the QAnon mass delusion as a signal from Trump that he was being sequestered in a safe place so that masses of Democratic politicians, beginning with Hillary Clinton, could be arrested, and that they should prepare for a battle against his political opponents.

Amnesty International USA on Tuesday put out what they said was unprecedented advisory, warning of the threat of gun violence and armed voter intimidation at the polls. Georgetown Law School experts have even prepared 50 fact sheets — one for each state — “explaining the laws barring unauthorized private militia groups and what to do if groups of armed individuals are near a polling place or voter registration drive.”

Even if those self-described militias don’t actually materialize on Election Day, if many voters fear that they could, that is a form of voter suppression, Kelley said.

“You may have voters saying, ‘I don’t feel safe going to the polls. I don’t know who is going to be there.’ And that’s classic voter intimidation,” Kelley said. “And he’s indirectly urging his supporters to engage in that kind of conduct and that’s worrisome.”

Robert Lloyd, the dean of Palm Beach Atlantic University’s school of arts and sciences and who worked as an elections observer in Nigeria, Libera, and Mozambique in the 1990s and 2000s, urged caution. He said any individual incidents of intimidation at polling places should be taken seriously but also had to be put into perspective nationally.

“In terms of [supporters] yelling and screaming at people, that would not be considered appropriate. Can you stop it in a country of 330 million people? Probably not,” he said. “That’s not to dismiss it, but you have to look at the overall picture.”

Still, Lloyd said, his work monitoring heated elections in Africa had taught him leaders should be careful not to use inflammatory language, because ”others may interpret it in ways they don’t mean.”

Ty Wright / Getty Images
A person wearing a mask and a face shield stands in line waiting to register for early voting outside of the Franklin County Board of Elections Office on Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio.

In another sign of just how unprecedented this election is, the Carter Center, the nongovernmental organization founded by former president Jimmy Carter that monitors elections around the world, is for the first time in its 30-year history turning its attention to the US.

The nonpartisan group announced in August that they were preparing an initiative, which may yet include some election observation, because they feared US democracy was “backsliding.”

“We’ve often thought about this and knew the US could improve or benefit from observation,” Carter Center Director of Democracy David Carroll told BuzzFeed News, “but we never really thought seriously we’d be asked in a serious way to observe in the US as a country that would need observation.”

Carroll said the last five years have seen a marked increase in political polarization and doubts about the credibility of the electoral process in the US. “The sense that people think the election might be stolen, that’s not something that was a widespread concern 20 years ago in the US,” he said. “It’s much more like countries where we work internationally.”

The unnamed former elections observer who spoke with BuzzFeed News cited Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power as a particularly worrying sign for US democracy and one that would tarnish America abroad.

“If America uses the same formula that we use overseas to see what countries are backsliding in their democracy,” she said, “then we are backsliding fast.”

In a report prepared ahead of their visit, the OSCE group mentioned their “concerns over potential use of intolerant rhetoric during the campaign, including inflammatory speech targeting ethnic and racial minorities coming from high level officials.”

It comes two years after the last crop of OSCE observers wrote a report on the 2018 US midterm elections, in which they found that rhetoric used in that campaign to be “often divisive, confrontational and intolerant, with much of it emanating from the national level.”

They recommended that all candidates and supporters refrain from language that incites hostility, discrimination, or violence.

On Wednesday last week, the morning after watching the debate, the president’s performance had done little to reassure Kelley, the Duke Sanford dean, that Trump’s confrontational rhetoric would diminish.

“We’re all getting tired of the word ‘unprecedented,’” she said. “You can only use it so many times before it’s no longer unprecedented.”

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David Mack is a deputy director of breaking news for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

CHICAGO(Reuters) - President Donald Trump promised a new dawn for the struggling U.S. steel industry in 2016, and the lure of new jobs in Midwestern states including Michigan helped him eke out a surprise election win.

FILE PHOTO: An entrance to the U.S. Steel Great Lakes Works plant is seen in Ecorse, Michigan, U.S., September 24, 2019. Picture taken September 24, 2019. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo

Four years later, Great Lakes Works - once among the state’s largest steel plants - has shut down steelmaking operations and put 1,250 workers out of a job. A year before the June layoffs, plant owner United States Steel Corp called off a plan to invest $600 million in upgrades amid deteriorating market conditions.

Trump’s strategy centered on shielding U.S. steel mills from foreign competition with a 25% tariff imposed in March 2018. He also promised to boost steel demand through major investments in roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

But higher steel prices resulting from the tariffs dented demand from the Michigan-based U.S. auto industry and other steel consumers. And the Trump administration has never followed through on an infrastructure plan.

Michigan’s heavy reliance on the steel and auto industries puts Trump’s trade policy in sharp focus ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election in this battleground state. Democrats say they aim to recapture the votes of blue-collar workers they lost to Trump four years ago - one key factor in his victory over Hillary Clinton. Trump won Michigan by less than one percent of the statewide vote total. The competition for the votes of often-unionized manufacturing workers - who historically have voted Democratic - will be just as fierce in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, political analysts say.

Biden leads Trump in Michigan by 8 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos state opinion poll of likely voters conducted from Sept. 29 - Oct. 6, widening his lead from a few weeks earlier.

Nationally, the steel industry has been shedding jobs for the past year - since before the wider economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic - and now employs 1,900 fewer workers than it did when Trump took office, according to U.S. Labor Department data. (For a graphic on steel jobs, click tmsnrt.rs/2SRIEaF)

While the tariffs failed to boost overall steel employment, economists say they created higher costs for major steel consumers - killing jobs at companies including Detroit-based automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. Nationally, steel and aluminum tariffs resulted in at least 75,000 job losses in metal-using industries by the end of last year, according to an analysis by Lydia Cox, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard University, and Kadee Russ, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. In all, they estimated, the trade war had caused a net loss of 175,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs by mid-2019.


In Michigan, steelmakers have served layoff notices to nearly 2,000 workers since the tariff took effect, according to a Reuters analysis of the notices steel companies filed with the state. The state’s primary metals manufacturing industry, which includes iron and steel mills, employed about 7,300 fewer workers in August than in March 2018, when Trump announced metal tariffs, according to data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The steel-industry setbacks account for just a fraction of the job losses in Michigan’s manufacturing sector - which now employs 55,100 fewer workers than it did when Trump took office in January 2017, U.S. Labor Department data shows. The state’s automotive industry accounted for 35% of the manufacturing job losses, according to the St. Louis Fed.

Whether such statistics will change swing-state voters’ minds remains to be seen. Bill Wischman, a financial manager at a Ford manufacturing facility in Plymouth, Michigan, says Trump has done more to protect U.S. manufacturing than any of his predecessors.

“He has given a whole-hearted effort,” said Wischman, 51, a Republican who voted for Trump in 2016.

Bob Kemper, grievance committee chairman at Great Lakes Works’ chapter of the United Steelworkers (USW) Union, put the blame squarely on Trump for the job losses.

“I don’t see any policy that helped us,” said Kemper, who is backing Biden. “We are losing our damn jobs here.”

The 1.2 million-member United Steelworkers (USW) Union, which represents U.S. manufacturing workers in many industries, supported Clinton in the last election and will again back the Democrat this time. Kemper acknowledged that many of his co-workers voted for Trump in 2016 but says that support has diminished along with the fortunes of Michigan’s steel industry.

Trump made similar 2016 campaign promises to revive the ailing coal industry by rolling back environmental regulations. But that industry’s employment has dropped 9% since 2016, to about 46,000, as 66 coal plants - nearly a fifth of the U.S. total - have closed. The economic losses come despite the administration’s moves to ease restrictions including limits on carbon emissions and dumping coal waste into streams.

The Republican party in Michigan did not respond to requests for comment. White House Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro did not answer questions from Reuters on the data showing job losses in steel and manufacturing.

When U.S. Steel idled Great Lakes Works, which primarily serves the automotive industry, it cited weak demand, lower steel prices and a new corporate strategy to invest in more cost-efficient technology. In May, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc said it was closing its hot strip steel mill and some other operations in the Detroit area and laying off 343 workers. It cited “rapidly deteriorating business conditions.”

A Cleveland-Cliffs spokeswoman did not answer questions about the impact of Trump’s trade policy on its business.

U.S. Steel defends Trump’s tariffs. Company spokeswoman Meghan Cox said the policy helps “ensure the strength of America’s steelmaking capacity during this pandemic.”

The firm’s shares have plunged about 82% since the beginning of March 2018 - the month Trump announced steel tariffs - compared with a 28% increase in the S&P 500 during the same period. U.S. steel prices are now 33% below their peak in May 2018 but remain 21% higher than the global market price because of tariffs - a gap that hurts the competitiveness of U.S. companies who fashion products from domestic steel.

“No matter what the tariff is, you cannot sell something if there is limited demand,” said Ned Hill, a professor of economic development at the Ohio State University.


‘THRIVING’ ENTERPRISE

Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally in August last year - as steel companies were grappling with falling demand and prices - that his tariff has turned a “dead” business into a “thriving” enterprise.

The tariffs did initially benefit companies including U.S. Steel and Nucor by limiting competition and boosting prices. In late 2018, U.S. Steel workers secured a cumulative 14% wage increase over a four-year period.

The tariffs also led to investment, said Jeff Ferry, chief economist at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a bipartisan trade group. Older coal-fired plants such as Great Lakes Works closed because of outdated technology, he said.

“We are not doing this to save individual jobs” in the short term, Ferry said of the tariffs. “If you grow the industries, in the long term, headcount will grow.”

That’s little comfort to the workers laid off from Great Lakes Works, who have found it harder to get new jobs amid the pandemic, Kemper said. The twin cities of Ecorse and River Rouge - which depended heavily on tax revenue from the plant - are also hurting, the cities’ mayors said. Ecorse used to collect up to $6 million in property taxes from the mill - or half its revenue, said Mayor Lamar Indwell, a Democrat.

Many Democrats have supported steel tariffs. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment on its steel trade policy. In a statement to USW in May, Biden said steel tariffs would remain until a global solution to limit excess production - largely in China - can be negotiated.

USW also supports tariffs but says the Trump administration undermined the policy by granting requests from steel-using U.S. manufacturers to exempt their imports - eliminating the advantage for domestic steel.

TARIFF HITS MICHIGAN AUTO FIRMS

The tariffs had a profound impact on steel consumers, industry experts say. All three Detroit automakers - General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV - have closed a plant in Michigan since January 2018, according to Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research. Both General Motors and Ford reported $1 billion each in increased steel cost in 2018.

GM declined to comment on the tariffs’ impact. A Ford spokeswoman said the automaker faced higher raw material costs in 2018 because it buys 95% of its steel from domestic suppliers. While raw steel prices have since come down, Ford’s manufacturing costs are still elevated because of U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made auto parts, she said. Retaliatory tariffs from China have also cut Ford’s vehicle exports to that country.

Companies further down the auto supply chain have also felt the impact of Trump’s trade policy.

Jeff Aznavorian, head of Michigan-based Clips & Clamps Industries, buys steel from U.S. mills to make metal and tool parts for Japanese and Detroit-based automakers. He said his company has lost contracts worth up to $3.6 million in the past two years. Competitors making parts in Canada and Mexico now have an advantage, he said, because steel costs have been lower in those countries.

Aznavorian said he may move some of his business overseas.

“I need to be in a place where I can buy raw material at a competitive price,” he said.

Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Caroline Stauffer and Brian Thevenot

AXIOS SurveyMonkey poll: VP debate

The poll found that a majority of Americans would trust Harris rather than Pence (54%-44%) to handle the federal response to the coronavirus, even though Pence is the head of the coronavirus task force.

• That sentiment was strongest among urban residents, who preferred Harris over Pence 70%-28%, while suburban residents gave Harris a smaller edge, 54%-45%.
• Rural Americans preferred Pence, 40%-57%

https://www.axios.com/axios-surveymonkey-poll-vice-presidential-debate-23cb74dc-1f45-4dad-8215-3d284971bf5b.html

Exclusive: Tech coalition opposes Trump 

anti-racism training ban

Ashley Gold


Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

A group of 11 technology, software and advertising organizations is calling on the Trump administration to rescind an executive order intended to stop federal agencies and contractors from conducting anti-racism trainings.

 

 

Catch up quick: 

The White House order describes its goal as "to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating," but its practical result is to ban diversity and inclusion programs, and critics have argued it will undermine progress toward reducing systemic racism in business, education and government.

What they're saying: The letter sent Thursday to the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Labor, organized by tech trade group the Information Technology Industry Council, is also signed by the Alliance for Digital Innovation, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, BSA | The Software Alliance, the Cybersecurity Coalition, the Entertainment Software Association, Internet Association, TechNet, NCTA - The Internet and Television Association, XR Association and the HR Policy Association.
The groups, which represent thousands of government contractors, say in the letter they will be directly affected by the executive order's requirements to restrict existing diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

"This EO would undo progress made toward promoting racial equity and ensuring American businesses can attract the diverse talent they need to remain best-in-class,” the letter says.
“The EO appears to restrict certain types of training programs that seek to combat race or sex stereotyping. We simply do not agree that there is anything divisive about providing information that encourages our employees to treat all of their colleagues equally and with respect," the groups write.

What's happening: On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed the Labor Department was probing the company to determine whether its goal of increasing Black representation constitutes racial discrimination.

The big picture: Silicon Valley firms remain overwhelmingly white, and tech companies have been pledging to become more diverse.