Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. December 14, 2021 Focus on Hospitalizations, Not Cases? Is it time to stop focusing so closely on Covid-19 case numbers?
Those figures have dominated life and have largely determined public restrictions since early 2020, but The Atlantic's Sarah Zhang suggested last month that hospitalizations are more important to track nowadays, given that Covid-19 tends to produce less-serious illness among vaccinated people who catch it.
Drs. Monica Gandhi and Leslie Bienen echo the point in a New York Times opinion essay. "Singapore, one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, started focusing its daily Covid reports on hospitalizations rather than cases in September," they write. "Its Health Ministry reported recently that, over the previous 28 days, of the 41,632 people infected, 98.7 percent had mild or no symptoms. … So far all variants can cause serious disease in unvaccinated people, and there are areas of the United States that are experiencing surges in hospitalizations. But in counties and states with high vaccination rates, policymakers should stop considering bumps in case numbers alone as the criteria for restrictions, although they should continue to monitor data on reported infections tallied by health departments."
Of course, Omicron could change things. Early studies have suggested Omicron is more able to infect the vaccinated, but scientists are still assessing whether the variant produces more-serious illness in those vaccinated people it does infect. As The Atlantic's Zhang notes in a more-recent essay, so far it doesn't seem to—though extant real-world data come with big "caveats." Still, Omicron's quick spread introduces a problem of proportions: "[I]f cases balloon dramatically, even a tiny percentage of patients becoming seriously ill can turn into too many hospitalizations all at once," Zhang writes. Inflation Could Be Tough on Europe "Europe's response to the pandemic has so far been more unified and potent than in previous crises," Martin Arnold and Tommy Stubbington write in a Financial Times essay, "but the true test will be how it manages the recovery." Now that the European Central Bank has acknowledged inflation could exceed targets, Arnold and Stubbington write that the ECB and its President, Christine Lagarde, are in a trickier spot than the US Federal Reserve, given that ECB policies serve 19 constituent countries. Bond-buying and monetary stimulus can help out the European Union's financially weaker members, but its richer ones will eye inflation numbers warily and seem to be getting antsy. "[S]till scarred by criticism of having raised interest rates too soon in the last crisis," the 2008–2009 financial crash and its aftermath, Arnold and Stubbington write that the ECB "is more reluctant than most to wind back its support," making things even more complicated. Does Cyber Have to Be Terrifying? The lawlessness of cybersecurity may not have to be so disquieting, even if the possibility of doomsday attacks is real, two essays in the new cyber-focused issue of Foreign Affairs suggest.
The US has been woefully disorganized on cyber, but it has slowly begun getting its house in order, finding success with low-tech reprisals like denial-of-service attacks against foreign actors, Sue Gordon and Eric Rosenbach write. America has a long way to go, but policies can be clarified based on lessons learned, like the value of publicly attributing attacks and confronting perpetrators in diplomatic settings, Gordon and Rosenbach argue.
Setting "rules of the road" for the international use of cyberattacks has seemed unrealistic, writes Joseph S. Nye, Jr., but we need not despair. Multilateral efforts have been ongoing, major cyber powers can come to their own agreements, and above all, norms take time to become entrenched. "It took two decades after the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan for countries to reach agreement on the Limited Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," Nye points out. Analysts have noted for months that as Turkey's currency value plummets amid low interest rates backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his political prospects have dimmed. The Wall Street Journal's Jared Malsin is the latest to note sinking popularity for Erdoğan's party.
Tracing Turkey's longer path toward illiberalism under Erdoǧan, William Gourlay writes for the Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog that "Erdoǧan's position as president is in jeopardy" as elections approach in 2023. "Much depends on how he responds to a loss, if that should eventuate. Whatever happens there will be ongoing repercussions within Turkey and outside it as well." At Foreign Policy, Steven A. Cook writes that some of Erdoǧan's opponents have promised to return Turkey to a parliamentary system from a presidential one, should they win in 2023, potentially putting a larger change on the table. |
