TPM Reader JL flags an interesting article in The Economist about the costs of a global vaccination program. The article is paywalled. But the key passage is tweeted here: “To get 70% of the planet’s population inoculated by April, the IMF calculates, would cost just $50 billion. The cumulative economic benefit by 2025, in terms of increased global output, would be $9 trillion, to say nothing of the many lives that would be saved.”
Biden Will Hold Solo News Conference After Putin Meeting
President Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin will not hold a joint news conference after the two leaders meet in Geneva next week, a White House official said.
Continue reading “Biden Will Hold Solo News Conference After Putin Meeting”
Readers Respond on Lab Leak #7
From TPM Reader JF …
As someone who has lived in Hong Kong for 15 years and what passes here for a passing familiarity with Chinese politics (but would probably be a more than passing familiarity for the average American), I agree with you about COVID and the PRC secrecy culture. It’s especially strong around things that make China look bad, and the instinct to censor and clamp down has only gotten stronger since Xi consolidated power. His shift from a term-limited supremo to a for-life supremo is underappreciated in the US, where I think most people just see a the same generic dictatorship, but it was a major change. The Chinese leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin served two five-year terms, in and out, and then retired after a decade (both are still alive).
The last supremos to wield power until at or near death were Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. By the time of Deng’s departure, China had moved to a system where, power was negotiated among the party elite. There was rotation at the top, governed by the incumbent leader, other politburo members, aspiring leaders, etc, and there were constitutional term limits (of course the PRC constitution can be changed, and was to allow Xi to stay on). All this constrained Hu and Jiang. They made all the real decisions, but their decisions could be overridden by the next guy, who everyone understood would be in power eventually.
Johnson Gets One-Week Suspension From YouTube After Boosting COVID Misinfo In Video
YouTube has suspended Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) from uploading videos for one week after a clip shared from his account showed the Wisconsin Republican touting hydroxychloroquine and another drug as treatments for COVID-19.
Trump DOJ Subpoenaed Apple For Data On More Than 100 Phone Numbers And Email Addresses In Leak Probe
Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple in February 2018 for data on 73 phone numbers and 36 email address as part of the Trump Justice Department’s investigation into leaks of classified information, according to multiple reports.
On Secrecy, COVID and the PRC
I hope you’ve enjoyed or at least feel you’ve learned more about this lab leak controversy from the emails I’ve published over the last couple days. I very much have. I now see a lot more of the complexity of the topic. But at the end of the day I come away with the conclusion that we really don’t know because we don’t have a lot of data.
And that brings us back to a recurrent point: if the Chinese authorities wanted to they could clear a lot of this up by granting access to the records of the Wuhan laboratory, perhaps the medical records of the staff and interviews with the relevant scientists. To China skeptics this is an obvious sign of guilt, a sign of something to hide. Many people from the sciences have a reaction that is a mix of anger and puzzlement. Science is about transparency, so what’s the problem exactly? Many biologists and virologists have years of experience working collaboratively with Chinese scientists or even some of the very scientists in question. So seeing them all go silent just seems odd or inexplicable.
But of course it’s not the scientists. It’s the Chinese government.
Readers Respond on Lab Leak #6
From TPM Reader MN …
First of all, for credibility’s sake, I am a computational biology postdoc at [*******]. I’ve done some research on the SARS-CoV-2 genome but it hasn’t been my main focus the way it has for many people. Nonetheless, I’m acquainted with at least the discussion of genomic mutations and evolution, although the nitty gritty web lab virology is not my area.
Reminder
Remember, our 2nd annual drive for The TPM Journalism Fund starts next week. I’ll get into all the details and the pitch next week. But it’s really important for our operation. So please keep an eye out and if you can give a glance to our posts about it we would really appreciate it.
The Senate’s Big China Bill Doesn’t Portend Much Good About ‘Bipartisanship’
On the few issues in Congress where there’s bipartisan support for some kind of action, the idea persists that the body can break through deadlock and pass real change.
It’s even led to discussion of a “secret Congress,” one free of the culture war-infected partisan politics in which legislators are free to quietly, and in a bipartisan fashion, pass meaningful legislation that the country needs.
But is that really true? Take a look at the Endless Frontier Act, a much-heralded package aimed at boosting federal investment in research and development to keep the country competitive with China in science and technology.
Continue reading “The Senate’s Big China Bill Doesn’t Portend Much Good About ‘Bipartisanship’”
Readers Respond on Lab Leaks #5
From TPM Reader JB …
For what it’s worth, I think most of the discussion in the US political world about the origins of COVID-19 has been about ephemera, driven by Republicans flopping around like fish in a boat as they try to devise a winning post-Trump (but Trump-friendly) political issue and media people fretting about whether media coverage is giving adequate weight to the things Republicans claim to be upset about today.