Trump administration rejects California fires disaster declaration


The Trump administration has rejected a disaster declaration request over rampant wildfires that scorched California last month. A spokesperson for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (CA OES) confirmed the development to CBS News.

© Bloomberg More California Fires Erupt As Dry Winds Make State A Tinderbox

"Confirming that the request for a Major Presidential Disaster Declaration for early September fires has been denied by the federal administration," Brian Ferguson said. "The state plans to appeal the decision and believes we have a strong case that California's request meets the federal requirements for approval. Meantime, Cal OES continues to aggressively pursue other available avenues for reimbursement/support to help individuals and communities impacted by these fires rebuild and recover."

The disaster declaration request was issued September 28. In it, Federal Emergency Management Agency Regional Administrator Robert J. Fenton Jr asked that the White House declare "a major disaster in Fresno, Los Angeles, Madera, Mendocino, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Siskiyou counties."

"The severity and magnitude of these fires continue to cause significant impacts to the state and to the affected, local jurisdictions, such that recovery efforts remain beyond the state's capabilities," the request reads in part.

The Creek Fire in Fresno and Madera counties is one of the largest in state history, having burned more than 340,000 acres, while the Bobcat Fire in Los Angeles County has consumed more than 115,000 acres. Other fires mentioned in the request include the El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino County, which has burned more than 22,000 acres; the Valley Fire in San Diego County, which has burned more than 16,000 acres; the Oak Fire in Mendocino County, and the Slater Fire in Siskiyou County, which has burned more than 156,000 acres.

It's unclear why the Trump administration denied the disaster declaration request. In the past, the president has been critical of California's response to wildfires and has blamed the recent increase in incidents on poor forest management, even though many forests in California are federally managed.

Trump acknowledges he may owe $400 million to unknown sources during town hall

U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged that he may owe $400 million to unknown sources during a town hall television event on Thursday.

© AP Photo/Evan Vucci President Donald Trump listens during an NBC News Town Hall, at Perez Art Museum Miami, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, in Miami.

The amount was originally revealed after a New York Times investigation that also claims Trump paid around $750 in taxes in the 2016 and 2017 tax years and no taxes for 10 of the last 15 years.

Read more: ‘I don’t want to pay taxes,’ Trump says while disputing NYT report in debate with Biden

“When you look at the amount of money, $400 million is a peanut, it is extremely underlevered (sic)," Trump told NBC host Savannah Guthrie. "It is levered with normal banks, not a big deal."

While Trump said "levered," he most likely meant leveraged, which means money was borrowed to invest in an expected profitable venture.

Trump said that he doesn't owe the money to Russia or any "sinister people." When asked if he owes it to any foreign bank or entity, he replied, "Not that I know of."

When asked directly whether he has over $400 million in debt, as the Times claims, Trump responded, "It is a tiny percentage of my net worth."

Video: Who do you owe money to? (cbc.ca) https://tinyurl.com/yxbujav3

"That sounds like yes (you are confirming,)" Guthrie replied.

There is concern that Trump's debt could be a national security risk to the U.S. as it could be used to influence the president's decision-making.

Read more: Trump’s reported debts raise national security issues for possible 2nd term: experts

“Why would banks assume the risk on these loans?” Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics attorney in Republican George W. Bush’s White House Painter, said when the news first broke.

“Or did someone else quietly assume risk of that loan for the bank to make it happen?”

Trump previously has said he has "very little debt" and has highlighted the amount of debt compared to his alleged net worth.

When asked whether he paid $750 in tax for the 2016 and 2017 tax years on Thursday, Trump said it is a "statutory number" and he thinks it is a "filing number" and claimed the New York Times' numbers were wrong.

-With files from the Associated Press

After pandemic delays, RCMP union's quest for salary bump resumes

After a series of pandemic-related delays, the head of the union representing Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers says salary negotiations are back in full swing — a process that could see policing costs swell across much of the country.

The original plan was to kick off bargaining talks in March, but the pandemic delayed many face-to-face meetings for the new union which, after a years-long fight, received certification back in 2019.

"I think our membership has shown their patience with respect to this process and I'd ask them and the public to obviously realize that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and we're building from zero. So it will take some time," National Police Federation president Brian Sauvé said in an interview with CBC News.

"As far as I'm concerned, they started in a very meaningful and fruitful way."

Sauvé said that, unless future meetings are hampered by a second wave of COVID cases, he hopes to present a deal to rank-and-file members to begin voting on next summer. RCMP members have never before had a union contract.

"So we're cautiously optimistic that everything is going to continue on that path and we'll be able to accomplish a lot in the next six to eight months," he said.

The RCMP employs more than 20,000 police officers. Giving them any kind of pay boost could put new pressure on budgets for multiple levels of government.

Citing the ongoing negotiations, Sauvé won't say publicly how much of a pay hike his union is seeking. He said the goal is to bring Mounties in line with other police agencies.

According to RCMP wage figures last updated in 2016, a constable makes between $53,000 and $86,110, while a staff sergeant can make between $109,000 and just over $112,000.

A constable for the Edmonton Police Service, meanwhile, makes a salary of between $69,107 and $112,427, according to the EPS website.

"They've been obviously without a raise for going on four years now, four and a bit," said Sauvé of his members. "We want to be fairly compensated."

© CBC Brian Sauvé is president of the National Police Federation.

A spokesperson for the Treasury Board said the federal government "is committed to reaching an agreement with the National Police Federation that is fair for RCMP regular members and reservists, as well as reasonable for Canadians."

"Out of respect for the collective bargaining process, we will not comment further on negotiations," said Bianca Healy in an email.
Contract policing under review

While the RCMP is overseen at the federal level, Mounties serve as police in most provinces and in all three territories through contract agreements. They also serve in more than 100 communities outside of cities.

The provinces and territories pay the lion's share of RCMP policing contracts — about 70 per cent — while the federal government covers the rest. Municipal RCMP contracts are based on a number of different cost-sharing scenarios that vary according to a community's size and the date it first signed a policing agreement with the RCMP.

Those contract policing obligations have been cited as a costly drain on the RCMP's resources, diverting them from federal duties such as investigating organized crime and protecting national security.

"Public Safety Canada and the RCMP have confirmed there are systemic sustainability challenges impacting the whole of the RCMP," said a memo drafted by Public Safety and obtained by the Canadian Press.

The salary talks come at a moment of national and international reckoning over police budgets and use of force, driven by in-custody deaths in the United States and investigations of Canadian police services' use-of-force policies.

Sauvé said those conversations haven't made their way into the salary negotiations yet.

"From our perspective, whether it's defund-the-police or [reallocating] resources, I think those are more political discussions about how we allocate resources, how we decide how many police officers are in a community. It really goes to the budgeting and recruiting efforts and the resource methodology that the RCMP uses," he said.

"We're advancing those arguments in different forums, like the federal budget committee, different provincial budget committees, the public safety minister's office and such. So it hasn't come up in contract negotiations."

Rights group threatens lawsuit to force New Brunswick to make abortion accessible


FREDERICTON — A civil rights group is threatening New Brunswick's government with a lawsuit to force the province to repeal its abortion-related legislation and to make the procedure more widely available.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

New Brunswick denies women, girls, and trans people fair access to abortions, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said in an Oct. 14 letter to Premier Blaine Higgs and Health Minister Dorothy Shephard.

If the government doesn't repeal its "discriminatory laws" on abortion and give wider access to the procedure, "we are prepared to commence legal proceedings," the letter reads.

Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, a director with the group, said New Brunswick is violating citizens' rights under the Charter.

"It's a fundamental rights issue and it's a matter of constitutionality and the province has not been willing to budge for a long time," she said in an interview Wednesday.

The association is targeting regulation 84-20 under New Brunswick's Medical Services Payment Act. That rule states the province will not subsidize the cost of an abortion conducted outside a "hospital facility approved by the jurisdiction in which the hospital facility is located."

Mendelsohn Aviv said that since there are only three hospitals in the province that provide abortion services -- two in Moncton and one in Bathurst -- most New Brunswickers don't have proper access to the procedure. Many, she added, don't have the means to travel to access the service.

Mendelsohn Aviv said she's confident that if the matter goes to court, her organization would win and force the province to repeal that law. The letter is just the beginning of the process, she added.

"This is step one and with any luck it will be sufficient," she said. "The cost to the government of fighting a lawsuit that they will lose is far greater than any cost to providing safe and accessible abortion care in the province."

A provincial government spokesperson refused to comment on the letter Thursday. "We do not comment on potential legal matters," Coreen Enos said in an email.

The only facility where New Brunswick residents can obtain an abortion outside a hospital is Clinic 554 in Fredericton. But its medical director, Dr. Adrian Edgar, has said the centre is facing closure because it's not financially sustainable.

Mendelsohn Aviv said the province has been called out before for its strict abortion regulations. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded Higgs last year the province has an obligation to fund out-of-hospital abortions or risk penalties.

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu echoed Trudeau's concerns earlier this year.

“Women are not covered in specific regions of that particular province, so I have spoken with my counterpart ... and we’ll continue those conversations," Hajdu said.

"We expect the province to come into compliance and ensure there is equity in access, in particular around abortion."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2020.

- - -

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Danielle Edwards, The Canadian Press

Rights group decries Myanmar's camps for displaced Rohingya
By GRANT PECK, Associated Press 2020-10-08


BANGKOK (AP) — The de facto detention of 130,000 ethnic Rohingya in squalid camps in Myanmar amounts to a form of apartheid, a human rights group alleged Thursday in urging the world to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to free them.

The camps are a legacy of long discrimination against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar and were the immediate consequence of communal violence that began in 2012 between the Rohingya and the Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group. The fighting left people in both groups homeless, but almost all of the Rakhine have since returned to their homes or been resettled, while the Rohingya have not.© Provided by Associated Press FILE - In this June 24, 2014, file photo, a Rohingya boy walks with a mat as children play in the background at Dar Paing camp for Muslim refugees in north of Sittwe, western Rakhine State, Myanmar. The de facto detention of 130,000 ethnic Rohingya in squalid camps in Myanmar amounts to a form of apartheid, a human rights group alleged Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020 in urging the world to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to free them. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe, File)

Human Rights Watch in its new report said inhuman conditions in 24 tightly restricted camps and closed-off communities in the western state of Rakhine threaten the right to life and other basic rights of the Rohingya.

“Severe limitations on livelihoods, movement, education, health care, and adequate food and shelter have been compounded by widening constraints on humanitarian aid, which Rohingya depend on for survival,” the report said. “Camp detainees face higher rates of malnutrition, waterborne illnesses, and child and maternal mortality than their ethnic Rakhine neighbors.”

“The government’s claims that it’s not committing the gravest international crimes will ring hollow until it cuts the barbed wire and allows Rohingya to return to their homes, with full legal protections,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

Myanmar’s government had no immediate response to the report. Rohingya are not recognized as an official minority in Myanmar, where they face widespread discrimination and most are denied citizenship and other basic rights. Many members of other ethnic groups consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

People living in the camps cannot move freely because of formal policies, ad hoc practices, checkpoints, barbed-wire fencing and a widespread system of extortion that makes travel prohibitive, Human Rights Watch said.


As we mark the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, take a look at the top 10 countries which generated the largest number of refugees and the top 10 countries where they have sought shelter, according to United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Mid-Year Trends 2016 data.

(Pictured) Refugees after being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, near Libya.

The report also noted a lack of education and employment opportunities was inflicting systemic damage. “This deprivation of education is a violation of the fundamental rights of the 65,000 children living in the camps. It serves as a tool of long-term marginalization and segregation of the Rohingya, cutting off younger generations from a future of self-reliance and dignity, as well as the ability to reintegrate into the broader community,” it said.

Myanmar's government in April 2017 announced plans to begin closing the camps, but Human Right Watch said those plans entailed building permanent structures in their place, ”further entrenching segregation and denying the Rohingya the right to return to their land, reconstruct their homes, regain work, and reintegrate into Myanmar society, in violation of their fundamental rights.”

Later that year, Myanmar security forces waged a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that targeted Rohingya. The army-directed violence including the burning of villages, rape and murder and drove an estimated 740,000 Rohingya to seek refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. International courts are seeking to determine whether genocide was committed.

Related slideshow: Refugees around the globe (Provided by Photo Services)

Gallery

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

21 SLIDES © Marcus Drinkwater/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Exclusive: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

By Eric M. Johnson and Joey Roulette 2020-10-08

© Reuters/Handout . Artist's rendering of Virgin Hyperloop's forthcoming certification center and test track to be built in West Virginia

SEATTLE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virgin Hyperloop has picked the U.S. state of West Virginia to host a $500 million certification center and test track for billionaire Richard Branson's super high-speed travel system, the company told Reuters.

The center will be the first U.S. regulatory proving ground for a hyperloop system designed to whisk floating pods packed with passengers and cargo through vacuum tubes at 600 miles (966 kmph) an hour or faster.

Later, Branson announced the decision in a press conference on Thursday, joined virtually by U.S. Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao, the state's Republican governor Jim Justice, and U.S. Senators from West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat.

"Today we lay the foundation for commercial deployment and operations across the United States of America and beyond," the company's Chief Executive Jay Walder told reporters.

In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, a trip between New York and Washington would take just 30 minutes. That would be twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train.

Construction is slated to begin in 2022 on the site of a former coal mine in Tucker and Grant Counties, West Virginia, with safety certification by 2025 and commercial operations by 2030, the company said.

Federal regulators will use the center, and accompanying six-mile test track, to establish regulatory and safety standards, while Virgin will test its product and infrastructure.

The announcement comes less than three months after the Transportation Department published guidance on a regulatory framework for U.S. hyperloop systems. On Thursday, Chao said the guidance will enable the company "to spend less time on government paperwork and more time on making hyperloop systems fast, efficient, and above all, safe."

Virgin Hyperloop, which has raised more than $400 million, largely from United Arab Emirates shipping company DP World and Branson, is among a number of firms racing to launch new high-speed travel systems.

Canada's Transpod and Spain's Zeleros also aim to upend traditional passenger and freight networks with similar technology they say will slash travel times, congestion and environmental harm linked with petroleum-fueled machines.

HYPERLOOP WAS FIRST DEVELOPED BY THE RESEARCH COUNCILS IN CANADA I SAW IT IN A MODEL FORM IN THE SIXTIES AT THE ALBERTA RESEARCH COUNCIL WHERE MY UNCLE WORKED AS AN ENGINEER.

Elon Musk's Boring Company envisions commuters zipping along underground tracks in electric cars.

Virgin Hyperloop picked West Virginia after reviewing applications from 17 U.S. states to host the center.

However, the company's most likely first route could be in India, linking Mumbai to Pune, though the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed procurement and construction, initially slated for 2020.

Virgin Hyperloop also has a research and development test track near Las Vegas, Nevada.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)

Trump's Indian worshipper dies 'depressed' over president's COVID-19 illness
By Sudarshan Varadhan

© Reuters/VINOD BABU FILE PHOTO:

 Bussa Krishna, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, adjusts a garland on a Trump statue after offering prayers at his house in Konney village

CHENNAI (Reuters) - An Indian man who worshipped Donald Trump and was upset by the news of the U.S. president contracting COVID-19 died of a cardiac arrest on Sunday, an official from his village and police said.

© Reuters/VINOD BABU FILE PHOTO:

 Bussa Krishna, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, wears a t-shirt with the word Trump as he poses for a photograph in Konney village

Bussa Krishna, who had said his devotion for Trump began more than four years ago when the leader appeared to him in a dream, had days ago posted a tearful video on his Facebook page wishing for his idol's recovery from the viral disease that has killed more than 1 million people worldwide.

© Reuters/VINOD BABU FILE PHOTO: 

Bussa Krishna, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, checks his mobile phone with an image of Trump outside his house in Konney village

Trump revealed on Oct. 2 that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and spent three nights in the hospital for treatment. He said on Sunday he had fully recovered and was due to resume campaigning on Monday ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

Venkat Goud, the head of Krishna's native Konney village and a close friend, said he was "depressed" that Trump and his wife Melania had got the disease.

"It's sad that he passed away without meeting his hero," Goud told Reuters by phone. "He had tried so hard to meet him" when Trump had come to India in February.




Raghupathi, a local police officer, said Krishna had left the village over two weeks ago to meet his parents in another part of the same southern state of Telangana.

"It is there that he passed away due to a cardiac arrest," Raghupathi, who goes by one name, said.

Reuters could not immediately contact Krishna's family members or the hospital where he was taken to. Local media said Krishna was in his late thirties.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

More homeowners in Edmonton, Calgary deferred mortgages during pandemic than in any other city

CBC/Radio-Canada

© John Bazemore, File/Associated Press Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation numbers show deferrals were sought in 18.9 per cent of mortgages in Alberta — double that of Ontario and Quebec.

A higher percentage of homeowners in Edmonton and Calgary deferred their mortgage payments than in any other major city in Canada, numbers shared by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation show.

In Edmonton, 21 per cent of mortgages were deferred in August, according to a list tweeted by CMHA president Evan Siddall. Calgary was close behind at 18 per cent.

Overall, deferrals were sought in 18.9 per cent of mortgages in Alberta — double that of Ontario and Quebec.

"We've been dealing — reeling — already from low energy prices and then shut downs related to COVID have led to people not being able to pay their mortgage bills and led to even more lower prices, leading to more layoffs," said Raja Bajwa, president of the Economic Society of Northern Alberta.

Canada's big banks announced mortgage-relief programs in March and April allowing mortgage payments to be deferred up to six months.

With deferrals coming to an end, it remains to be seen whether those relying on the programs will face foreclosures or find other strategies to continue payments, Bajwa said.

"This will kind of be holding our breath to see where things are at," he said.

Homeowners who took deferrals fell broadly into two categories, said Todd Bradley, a real-estate agent with Royal LePage in Edmonton, those who used the deferral as a means to stockpile cash or pay off other consumer debt and people who "really put a Band-Aid on some very intense bleeding."

"There's a big chance that they couldn't make the payments three or four months ago and they couldn't make the payments now that the deferral ends," Bradley said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

"Those people are going to be in a whole world of hurt."

Bradley predicts the industry will see a jump in foreclosures.

"I don't think it's going to be calamitous, but they're going to increase."

Although the court system is getting back on track after shutting down early in the pandemic, foreclosure cases are well behind, he said.

"You won't see the foreclosures come from the court probably for another six or seven months — easily that long."

Bradley notes there could be a silver lining for potential buyers, however.

"If you do have stable employment and you have a little bit of down payment, never, ever have interest rates been this low for mortgages."

Lenders will need to plan

Mark Holtom, a mortgage broker with Dominion Lending Centres, believes part of the reason Alberta's deferral proportion was so high was because the province has fewer mortgage holders than Ontario or Quebec.

Banks were not set up to deal with the program when it began, leading to long waits on the phone, which would have been even longer in places with a higher proportion of mortgages, Holtom said.

Those looking for a deferral but not necessarily needing one would have bowed out somewhere along the way, he said.

"I think Alberta maybe was just a little bit luckier in enabling to defer them."

The impact of deferrals will likely be seen in the next six months, Holtom said. But with many people returning to work, he does not see catastrophe ahead.

"You're probably going to see a small percentage of properties that may be going into foreclosure or would normally go into foreclosure," he said.

With the courts backed up, Holtom said, lenders will have to make decisions that could mean further deferrals.

"It's in their best interest to work with those borrowers to actually come up with a plan," he said.

Analysis: The US and Europe face rising Covid-19 case numbers as they squander lessons from Asia-Pacific

Analysis by Tara John, CNN

While the Asia-Pacific region treads water until a coronavirus vaccine is found, the West's biggest economies are drowning as a second wave firmly establishes itself in Europe.

© Top Photo Corporation/Shutterstock Mandatory Credit: Photo by Top Photo Corporation/Shutterstock (10739563a) Eric Chou performs in concert and invited Ella to be his special guest. Eric Chou in concert, Taipei, Taiwan, China - 09 Aug 2020

Europe is now reporting more daily infections than the United States, Brazil, or India -- the countries that have been driving the global case count for months -- as public apathy grows towards coronavirus guidelines. Several countries are seeing infection rates spiral again after a summer lull that saw measures to contain the virus and travel restrictions relaxed.

© Win McNamee/Getty Images North America/Getty Images US President Donald Trump removes his mask on his return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was treated for coronavirus.

In the United Kingdom, for example, questions are being asked about whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to lift the country's lockdown in June was premature. Northern England's current high rates of Covid-19 are down to the fact that infections "never dropped as far in the summer as they did in the south," Jonathan Van-Tam, Britain's deputy chief medical officer, told a press conference on Monday.

© STR/AFP/AFP via Getty Images Thousands of revelers gathered at an open air water park in the Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the pandemic, for an electronic music festival in August.

It is just the latest problem to beset Britain's slapdash pandemic response. There are now more patients in hospital with Covid-19 in England than there were in March, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed, according to Johnson and health officials.

France and the Netherlands broke their own records over the weekend, reporting the highest numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

In the United States, there were more new positive cases in the White House on October 2 than in the whole of Taiwan, after President Donald Trump became the second G7 leader (after Johnson) to test positive for Covid-19. Despite his illness, Trump has continued to downplay the severity of the virus and potentially endanger the health of those around him, holding a campaign rally on Monday.

Seven months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic, life is closer to normal in the Asia-Pacific region thanks to the basic lessons of epidemiology: clear communication, quarantines, border controls, aggressive testing and contact tracing, Kenji Shibuya, the Director of the Institute for Population Health at King's College London, told CNN.

Nightclubs remain open in Taiwan, which also held its first full capacity arena show in August. Thousands were pictured visiting the Great Wall of China last week, months after an estimated 20,000 people packed into a New Zealand stadium for a rugby match.

European countries with successful pandemic responses, like Germany, have taken this approach.

But experts say Spain, the US and the UK are seeing cases skyrocket, and cracks appear in the political and public consensus, after they opted to prematurely re-open their economies without heeding those rules.

Spain's government declared a state of emergency on Friday in the country's worst-hit Madrid region, in order to override regional leaders' objections to the restrictions. In the UK, Johnson's muddled messaging and a lack of transparency in decision-making have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum.

But instead of taking stock of their failures and looking at a sustainable way forward, an Anglo-American narrative has grown, suggesting it is too late to try to emulate Asia-Pacific nations, said Dr. Tim Colbourn, a global health epidemiology and evaluation lecturer at University College London. Libertarian think-pieces, open letters and politicians across the Atlantic have advocated -- with little scientific merit -- for governments to "give up restrictions and let it [Covid-19] spread" for the sake of the economy, Colbourn said.

© SAM YEH/AFP/AFP via Getty Images A worker sprays sprays hand sanitiser onto passengers as they arrive at Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan.

This is a maddening idea to the vast majority of health professionals and scientists, who point to Covid-19's high fatality rate and its long-term effects on survivors.

"When countries [like the US and UK] experience declining life expectancy, it really should be a red flag," said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Deteriorating health in populations has electoral consequences, McKee told CNN -- adding that historically, those factors caused "populism and then you get state failure."

© From Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare/Facebook Taiwan's government deployed a cartoon spokesdog to help communicate its social distancing policy.

Classic epidemiology

Resurgences of Covid-19 in the Asia-Pacific region look a lot different to what is happening in the West. New Zealand pretty much eradicated community transmission within its borders after a minor outbreak in August, during which the virus' spread never rose beyond 19 new infections a day.

Border controls have been effective, says Shibuya. Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand have largely kept their borders closed to visitors, with returning citizens and work permit holders being quarantined at home or at designated facilities.  

 

© Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images A South Korean woman wears plastic gloves and a mask as she prepares to cast her ballot during April's election.

The same is true in Vietnam, which remains closed to most international travelers and, like many countries in the region, has encouraged citizens to holiday within its borders. The lower-middle income country has taken a proactive approach to the outbreak, bringing infections down to the single digits in October, little more than two months after authorities evacuated 80,000 local tourists from the resort city of Da Nang after three residents tested positive for the virus.

By contrast, the European Union resumed inter-regional tourism in June, even though many European countries were slow to require visitors to undergo routine testing on arrival.

The United Nations' tourism agency, the UNWTO, found that "Europe is the region in which more destinations (81%) have eased travel restrictions" while only 28% of destinations in the Asia-Pacific region had eased border controls by September 1, according to its analysis of travel restrictions.

Taiwan and South Korea, which had the world's second highest number of cases in February, kept a handle on outbreaks without blunt instruments like lockdowns thanks to their gold standard test and tracing systems, and a transparent communication strategy that has kept the public on side.

The UK deploys conventional contact-tracing methods, which identify cases and track down the people they met after they became infectious, says McKee. Meanwhile, Asian countries like South Korea have relied on what is known as backwards tracing, which attempts to identify the event, place or source of an infection.

"Was it the churches in Germany, our packing plants or a nightclub in Korea?" Mckee said, adding that instead of focusing on the source of infection, the UK has "hit whole communities with a hammer" of localized lockdowns without consulting local leaders. He says such measures are appropriate "if you don't have intelligence" on the source of an outbreak, but adds: "The UK should not be in that position at this stage."

Even the economic situation looks less stark. The IMF forecasts that the economy in the Asia-Pacific region will contract by 0.2% this year, while those in US and Western Europe are expected to sink by 5.9% and 7.3% respectively.

Cultural tropes

Asia-Pacific's response has been shaped by the 2003 SARS outbreak. Trauma from that period meant many Asian countries were better prepared and better resourced to act decisively at start of the pandemic with public approval.

But a common, and orientalist, refrain has emerged from the Western commentariat that more draconian measures and -- arguably sensible -- rules on mask wearing would be impossible to mandate on freedom-loving Anglo-Americans.

Countries like Norway and the Netherlands recommend masks in indoor public spaces, but do not mandate it. Swedish authorities have actively discouraged the use of masks, despite the high number of Covid-19 deaths in care homes,

As well as resorting to lazy cultural tropes, such as Trump's immediate racialization of the outbreak by calling coronavirus the "China virus," American and British leaders have also repeatedly undermined guidance and best practice.

Though he has since changed tack, in March Johnson said he shook hands "with everybody" during a visit to a hospital treating confirmed Covid-19 patients, on the same day the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies advocated against the practice. Trump has turned masks into a hyper-partisan issue, routinely mocking Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a face covering.

Communication strategies are an underestimated "non-pharmaceutical intervention" which are not only useful in the short term -- by encouraging measures like mask usage -- but have long-term uses as well, says Heidi Tworek, an associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, who authored a report on democratic communications during the pandemic.

The report analyzed three democratic jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific region -- Taiwan, New Zealand, and South Korea -- and found that cohesive messages from those governments were useful in forestalling "compliance fatigue" and laid the foundation for vaccine uptake. "They also matter for cultivating trust among citizens and their governments -- trust that is critical for the future stability of democratic institutions," the report stated.

Winning trust

That trust can easily be lost. A study in The Lancet found that when Johnson's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, broke lockdown rules but faced no consequences, it undermined the public's faith in the government's ability to handle the pandemic. The opposite happened in New Zealand, where David Clark, its Health Minister, was demoted in April 2020 after twice breaking the country's Covid-19 regulations. He resigned in July and goodwill for the government has remained.

New Zealand and South Korea adopted a "division-of-labour approach to communicating political and scientific information," the report noted. Public health officials would first deliver the science. The message would be humanized and reinforced with meaning by politicians like New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern or South Korea's President Moon Jae-on in televised addresses or Facebook lives, Tworek said.

Misinformation and conspiracies were tackled in South Korea and Taiwan via high quality information being pushed out on multiple channels, Tworek added. To engage the public, the Taiwanese government worked with local comedians to create memes for their "humor over rumor" strategy. It included the use of a cartoon "spokesdog," a Shiba Inu called Zongchai, to help communicate its policies. One meme showed that the 1.5 meter indoor social distancing policy equated to the length of three Shiba Inu, while the outdoor social distancing policy was two Shiba Inu.

Masks were distributed to Taiwanese households at the start of the pandemic -- many of them in a shade of pink. After hearing that male students were being bullied for wearing pink masks at schools, officials wore pink face coverings at their daily briefing. "It is fantastic because it's not just about countering disinformation, it is about countering stigma and prejudice," Tworek said. "This is not rocket science. These are basic tenets of health and risk communications [in order to] establish trust."

Have an upcoming election in the pandemic? Asian democracies also have a solution to that. South Korea saw its highest turnout in April's poll as voters wore masks and gloves, polling booths were disinfected, and people spaced out as they queued to vote. In the US, officials are turning large venues and sports centers into polling stations in order to accommodate social distancing concerns in November's poll.

New Zealand and Hong Kong postponed elections over the summer, citing coronavirus fears. While the main New Zealand opposition party backed the move, some pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong claimed the government was using the pandemic as an excuse to avoid potential losses in a crucial election.

America's largest roadblock remains its President, who has repeatedly called into question the integrity of the democratic process by undermining the safest way to hand in a ballot in a pandemic: Mail-in voting.

As Trump continues to downplay the threat of the virus, another 20,000 Covid-19 deaths are "inevitable" by the end of the month, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, told CNN this weekend.

Unlike the Asia-Pacific region, the West appears to be well on its way to a tragic winter.

Americans' dwindling belief in American exceptionalism
Mark Hannah and Dina Smeltz, opinion contributors 

If in the past several years, you've started to think America has lost its superior standing in the world, you're not alone. For the past several decades, American foreign policy has been animated by a belief that the country possesses special traits which, as one leading policymaker put it, "can be put to work to advance both the national interest and the larger common interest." This defines American exceptionalism, the belief that America can and should single-handedly confront the world's problems, not just its own. Recently fashionable inside the Beltway, this conviction is dwindling in the face of our present reality.

© Getty Images Americans' dwindling belief in American exceptionalism

This past year has laid bare to many the myth at the heart of American exceptionalism. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) and the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF) are out with two major national surveys of Americans' views about their country and its role in the world. As the lead authors of both reports, we were struck at how Americans' confidence in their country's global leadership has plummeted. As a snapshot, this is not terribly surprising. This year has been full of sobering events, from the botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic to racial unrest to the struggle against west coast wildfires.

But this isn't merely a snapshot. The CCGA survey documented a steady downward trend going back eight years in feelings of American exceptionalism. The EGF study found a strong correlation with age, with the youngest Americans most likely to think "America is not an exceptional nation."

As the heady Cold War victory recedes from memory, and as Americans' experience of their country's foreign affairs continues to be dominated by decades of discrediting and dispiriting adventures in the Middle East, Americans appear to have grown bearish on their country's international influence. This is not all bad news. In fact, these findings give us some cause for optimism. America's political leaders can better confront threats and respond to the world as it is if they shed that intoxicating sense of supremacy, which leads to foolhardy foreign policy choices.

As Matt Duss, an advisor to Bernie Sanders, commented in response to some of these findings, "We can and should be globally engaged without stoking ultranationalist chauvinism... upholding democracy, dignity, and the rule of law doesn't require, is actually undermined by, the belief that we are anointed by God [or] history."

Americans of all political stripes are tired of international interventions - including to protect human rights - as they seek to shift leadership of international problems to multilateral organizations and, crucially, see urgent human rights problems at home which need to be tackled first. When the Eurasia Group Foundation asked how peace is best achieved and sustained by the United States, a plurality of both Democrats and Republicans answered: "by keeping a focus on domestic needs and the health of American democracy, while avoiding unnecessary intervention beyond the borders of the United States." Thirty-five percent more survey-takers believe the U.S. should first fix its "own human rights problems" such as "mass incarceration and aggressive policing" than believe the U.S. should use "military intervention to stop human rights abuses around the globe."

According to the Chicago Council, fewer Americans today than at any time in the past eight years believe the United States has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world - barely half, down from a high of 70 percent in 2012. While eight in ten Republicans continue to say the United States is the greatest country on Earth, this sentiment has taken a nose-dive among Democrats and Independents alike.

These declines are likely related to disappointment with how the government handles the domestic issues they deem top threats. Barely one in five Democrats say the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been effective, and fewer think the government has responded well to climate change, election interference, or racial and economic inequality. Mere minorities of Independents think the government responded effectively to the pandemic, political polarization, China's development as a world power, and racial inequality. Even among Republicans, fewer than half think the government is effectively confronting economic inequality, racial inequality, and political polarization, although these are not counted among the top threats.

Across both surveys, one thing Americans appear to believe is that America's strength abroad depends upon its strength at home. The US ranks 27th out of 31 countries in an OECD's social-justice index. Other recent surveys show the United States' global opinion is at or near new lows, with declining percentages worldwide saying America respects its citizens' personal freedoms. The virus is the latest challenge to national unity. Still, political polarization and economic tensions have long been simmering, and the prospect of a flagrant and flamboyant challenge to the integrity of American elections likely diminishes this stature further.

Jim Goldgeier and Bruce Jentleson recently argued the United States should have "a seat at the table but not always at its head." Americans appear to agree and would welcome a greater role for international institutions and agreements. Roughly 70 percent want the U.S. to reenter the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, and 66 percent think the U.S. should rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. A solid majority believes the U.S. should negotiate with adversaries to avoid a military confrontation. The largest group of respondents support a type of U.S. engagement characterized by fewer international military obligations and more diplomacy.

Far from a kind of confidence crisis, it's likely Americans are emerging from a period of overconfidence. Instead of trying to solve the world's problems single-handedly, they are taking a more realistic assessment of the threats their country faces. They want political leaders to emphasize cooperation over confrontation and protect America's power at home before projecting it abroad. In a democracy predicated on the popular will, those leaders would be wise to listen.

Mark Hannah is a senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation. Dina Smeltz is a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.