Coronavirus: Germany poised to pass 100,000 COVID-19 deaths

Germany is poised to pass the mark of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 this week, a sombre milestone that several of its neighbours crossed months ago but which Western Europe's most populous nation had hoped to avoid.

Discipline, a robust health-care system and the rollout of multiple vaccines — one of them homegrown — were meant to stave off a winter surge of the kind that hit Germany last year.

Read more at: Germany poised to pass 100,000 COVID-19 deaths | CBC News

Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic

Now that kids ages 5 to 11 are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination and the number of fully vaccinated people in the U.S. is rising, many people may be wondering what the endgame is for COVID-19.

Early on in the pandemic, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) might just go away, since historically some pandemic viruses have simply disappeared.

For instance, SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the first SARS pandemic in 2003, spread to 29 countries and regions, infecting more than 8,000 people from November 2002 to July 2003. But thanks to quick and effective public health interventions, SARS-CoV hasn’t been observed in humans in almost 20 years and is now considered extinct.

Read more at: Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic

Covid-19 not over yet: Surgeon General on Unvaccinated: 'I Am Worried About What Is to Come'

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that he is "worried about what is come" and the COVID-19 "pandemic is not over" amid a surge in cases, particularly among individuals who have yet to get the vaccine.

"I am worried about what is to come because we are seeing increasing cases among the unvaccinated in particular," Murthy said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, the Hill reported. "And while if you are vaccinated you are very well protected against hospitalization and death, unfortunately, that is not true if you are not vaccinated."

Read more at: https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-on-unvaccinated-i-am-worried-about-what-come-2021-7?international=true&r=US&IR=T

China-US ties on the brink of a complete breakdown: by Stephen S Roach

In his article "The end of the US-China relationship," Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, describes new shifts in the China-US relationship amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrote, "After 48 years of painstaking progress, a major rupture of the US-China relationship is at hand. This is a tragic outcome for both sides - and for the world." How should both countries manage the economic and geopolitical risks of a full rupture? Is it still possible for the two great powers to regain the trust and cooperate in the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic? Roach shared his views with Global Times (GT) reporters Hu Yuwei and Zhao Juecheng.

GT：How will the current pandemic reshape China-US relations? Will it drag the two countries into a new cold war?

Roach: My basic conclusion is that the relationship between the US and China right now is the worst that I have seen in my career, and I've been following this relationship for 25 years closely. I think it started with the trade war in 2018. It's now moved into disputes over the novel coronavirus. And public opinion in the US, as measured by a Pew Research survey conducted very recently, shows bipartisan sentiment against China is as bad as it has ever been since the survey was conducted.

Also, there has been a leak of the Republican Party's political strategy that was written up by some consultants for the presidential campaign. I've read this 57-page strategy document very carefully. Its basic premise on the politics of the novel coronavirus - Do not defend Trump, but attack China. Republican strategy in the upcoming presidential election campaign is very much focused on attacking China.

Many new policies are being floated consistent with this approach: Bringing back supply chains from China, renewed or increased tariffs, or the most ridiculous of all, a threat of withholding debt payments on Chinese holdings of US treasury securities.

This strategy - after a trade war and after blaming China for the coronavirus itself - leads me to believe that the relationship is on the brink of what I would call a rupture, a complete breakdown. And I don't expect things to improve between now and the election. This is a tragedy. It did not have to happen this way. In US politics, sometimes things go in unfortunate directions. This is one of those times.

Read more at: China-US ties on the brink of a complete breakdown: Roach - Global Times