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Country Reports

Corona Update, USA (17) – aktuelle Studien, Analysen und Kommentare

by Sabine Murphy, Jeanene Lairo, Elmar Sulk, Syreta Haggray, Dirk Hegen, Paul Linnarz

Für die Zeit vom 17. bis 23. Juli 2020

Die Corona-Krise hat über die erheblichen gesundheitlichen Risiken und Folgen hinaus weitreichende Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft, Sicherheit, Forschung, Innen- und Außenpolitik sowie das gesellschaftliche Leben in den Vereinigten Staaten. Namhafte US-amerikanische Think Tanks und Experten setzen sich intensiv mit den unterschiedlichen Aspekten und Herausforderungen dieser in ihrem Umfang und ihrer Schnelligkeit beispiellosen Krise auseinander. Für einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der Diskussion stellt das KAS-Auslandsbüro USA mit Sitz in Washington D.C. wöchentlich eine Auswahl an Studien, Analysen und Kommentaren jeweils mit Links zu den Beiträgen zusammen.

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“Experts react: European leaders reach decisive coronavirus recovery agreement”

Quelle: Atlantic Council (July 21, 2020)

Benjamin Haddad, Director, Future Europe Initiative, et. al.

The European Union took a major step by agreeing on a recovery package from the coronavirus economic crisis and a seven-year budget. Atlantic Council experts react to the agreement and analyse what it means for the future of EU countries. More in this article.

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“Amid COVID, We Need Enhanced International Coordination to Build Peace”

Quelle: United States Institute of Peace (USIP, July 23, 2020)
 
Jonathan Papoulidis, Executive Advisor on Fragile at World Vision, et al.
 

In this article the authors contend that tackling the pandemic and building resistance in fragile states will require concerted international action at local, national and global levels. While the U.S. Congress passed the Global Fragility Act (GFA) in December 2019, Covid-19 makes clear how such country coordination platforms as presented in GFA are needed. The GFA three-tiered model presented was tested in Somalia, which, according to the authors, has shown to have helped promote peace.

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“A post-Covid Agenda for Africa's Power markets”

Quelle: Baker Institute at Rice University (July 22, 2020)

Rose Mutiso, Research Director of the Energy for Growth Hub, and Todd Moss, nonresident fellow, Center for Energy Studies

The pandemic has thrown a harsh light on energy inequality. The authors published an article on the website "sustainable energy for all" (seforall.org) and suggest a forward-looking agenda that responds to new realities in Africa but accelerates progress toward ending energy poverty and creating the energy systems needed for economic opportunity for all on the continent.

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„COVID-19, the Iranians, and Us “

Quelle: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS, July 21, 2020)

Jon B. Alterman, Senior Vice President

According to the author, just a few months ago, experts were predicting that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran was falling prey to its own demons. "While Iran’s virus response has been disastrous, the U.S. response has been even more so," says Jon Alterman, who also served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, in this commentary. "A weakened United States opens up the playing field for [U.S. adversaries] ...," he concludes. "For Iran, Chinese ties are both an escape hatch from sanctions and a shield against U.S. aggression," states Alterman, who is also a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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“What’s the Fed doing in response to the COVID-19 crisis? What more could it do?”

Quelle: The Brookings Institution (July 17, 2020)

Jeffrey Cheng, Research Analyst, et al.

This report lays out Covid-19-related actions by the Federal Reserve, including near-zero interest rates, financial market support, securities purchases, backstopping money market mutual funds, encouraging banks to lend, support of corporations, SMEs, households, states and municipalities. The authors also make several recommendations for future steps the Fed could take.

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“Ill-Considered Tax Cuts Will Not Help the Economy Recover from the Coronavirus Crisis”

Quelle: Center for American Progress (CAP, July 23, 2020)

Seth Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Federal Tax and Budget Policy; Alexandra Thornton, Senior Director of Tax Policy for Economic Policy

With the enhanced unemployment benefits expiring this week, upwards of 30 million American workers face losing a vital lifeline. According to the authors however, the Trump administration's go-to toolkit; corporate and payroll tax cuts are exceptionally poor solutions to the crisis at hand. Learn why in their column.

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“COVID-19 and the Costs of Military Primacy”

Quelle: Real Clear Defense (July 22, 2020)

Stephen Wertheim, Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
 
The author argues in the article that the pandemic adds a new dimension to the case for transforming U.S. foreign policy: reduce U.S. global military entanglements and free up resources to allow her to engage the world diplomatically. Instead the pandemic has revealed how the U.S. “globe-straddling military has proven irrelevant to the greatest attack on the American people” even though the federal government spends more than half of its discretionary budget on defense while leaving millions of Americans without basic health care.

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“Tracking COVID-19 in the United States. From Information Catastrophe to Empowered Communities”

Quelle: Resolve to Save Lives (July 21, 2020)

Thomas R. Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

In this report, the author, a former CDC director who know runs "Resolve to Save Lives", a nonprofit health advocacy initiative, calls on U.S. state health officials to start reporting coronavirus data in a detailed and uniform fashion. "Absent a national strategy, our best hope is to get all 50 states on the same page, so we know where we are," says the author. The report (here the full pdf) lays out 15 indicators that every U.S. state should report daily on a public "dashboard".

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“As COVID-19 cases increase, most Americans support ‘no excuse’ absentee voting”

Quelle: Pew Research Center (July 20, 2020)

Vianney Gomez, Research Assistant; Bradley Jones, Research Associate

This study examines attitudes of Americans regarding the prospect of conducting the November 2020 presidential election during a pandemic, especially when it comes to access to early or absentee voting. According to Pew, “about two-thirds of Americans (65%) say the option to vote early or absentee should be available to any voter without requiring a documented reason.” The study also lists 16 states which require an excuse when opting for absentee voting.

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“Encouraging results from phase 1/2 COVID-19 vaccine trials”

Quelle:  The Lancet (July 20, 2020)

Naor Bar-Zeev and William J Moss, International Vaccine Access Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This comment describes two promising vaccine trials, one in Oxford, UK and one in Wuhan, China. The authors assert that “both groups used an adenoviral vector, and both report the vaccine achieving humoral (…) as well as T-cell responses.” For both vaccines limited side effects were reported. According to the comment the results of both studies “augur well for phase 3 trials, where the vaccines must be tested on much larger populations of participants to assess their efficacy and safety.”

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“Why Black and Hispanic residents are more likely to become infected by the coronavirus”

Quelle: Poynter Institute (July 22, 2020)

Tim Nickens, Journalist

The likelihood to become infected with coronavirus and die of complications is much greater for Hispanic and Black Americans than white residents. In this interview Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses reasons why the number of minorities who are medically affected by COVID-19 is disproportionately higher than that of White Americans.

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“COVID-19 has ravaged American newsrooms. Here’s why that matters.”

Quelle: NiemanLab at Harvard University (July 20, 2020)

Damian Radcliffe, Professor of Journalism, University of Oregon

“The irony is that while battering journalism, the pandemic has also underlined the need for reliable local news.” In his article Radcliffe makes the point that local journalism has been hit hard by the pandemic and more than 200 newsrooms and media groups had to lay off journalists or cut costs. The pandemic has accelerated long term financial trends according to the author, when “access to accurate information tailored and relevant to your community can be crucial during a public health crisis.”

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“By Nearly a 2-1 Margin, Parents Prefer to Wait to Open Schools to Minimize COVID Risk, with Parents of Color Especially Worried Either Way”

Quelle: Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF, July 23, 2020)
 
In this analysis, which is based on the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll, Americans believe that most things will get worse before they get better. Parents when asked overwhelmingly prefer schools wait to restart in-person classes (60%) rather than open sooner so parents can work and students can return to the classroom (34%). The paper claims that the “cautious approach to reopening schools may reflect a lack of confidence that schools have the resources to do so safely.”

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Weitere Kurzbeiträge:

“Are the Ups and Downs of COVID-19 Cases Due to Politicians?”

Quelle: CATO Institute, (July 22, 2020)

Alan Reynolds, Senior Fellow

In his blog post Reynolds argues we should beware of blaming, or crediting, politicians for the ebbs and flow of COVID-19 infection rates as it distracts from serious examination of real problems and real solutions.

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“COVID-19 Results in Drops in Juvenile Detention Admissions, Most of All for Black Youth”

Quelle: R Street, (July 21, 2020)

Nila Bala, Associate Director, Criminal Justice & Civil Liberties, and resident senior fellow

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a number of possible reforms that should be considered, even after a return to the status quo. Nila Bala's op-ed stipulates that the pandemic has forced correctional authorities have had to weigh the risks of detention of the risks of release with surprising results.

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Für die aktuellen Zahlen zur Corona-Krise in den USA:

The Centers for Disease Control:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Johns Hopkins University:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

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Contact

Paul Linnarz

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Director KAS office USA

paul.linnarz@kas.de + 1 202 464 5840

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The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung is a political foundation. Our offices abroad are in charge of over 200 projects in more than 120 countries. The country reports offer current analyses, exclusive evaluations, background information and forecasts - provided by our international staff.