China zero covid policy

TOKYO  – Asia’s factory activity contracted in January as the boost from China’s COVID reopening had yet to offset headwinds from slowing U.S. and European growth, surveys showed on Wednesday, underscoring the fragility of the region’s economic recovery. China’s factory activity shrank more slowly in January after Beijing lifted tough COVID curbs late last year, a private sector survey showed. Softening input-price pressures also offered initial positive signs for Asia, with the pace of contraction in output slowing in Japan and South Korea, the surveys showed. But there is uncertainty about whether Asia can weather the hit from slowing global demand and stubbornly high inflation, some analysts say. “The worst of Asia’s downturn is behind, but the outlook is clouded by weaknesses in major export destinations like the United States and Europe,” said Toru Nishihama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. “With the recovery from COVID-19 under way, Asian … [Read more...] about Asia’s factory activity contracts despite China’s COVID reopening

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The Covid situation looks a lot better today than it was a year ago. But that doesn’t mean everything is fine – especially for people like me who are still “High Risk.” The CDC is again telling high risk people what steps they can take to protect themselves from Covid-19. But four years and thousands of "takes" into the pandemic, most of us still don't feel like we know what protecting ourselves actually means. And what few tools we do have are stigmatized, broken, or being taken away. Even under the best circumstances, High Risk people like me can’t completely protect ourselves from Covid-19. The best we can do is reduce our risk a little and hope that current promising trends continue. "High Risk" includes people like me, who because of chronic respiratory problems and other physical disabilities, would probably have a much rougher time with Covid — even when fully vaccinated and boosted. Many of us are asking, … [Read more...] about 3 Modest Covid-19 Policies To Help High Risk People

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Of late, there have been reports of the resurgence of Chinese air travel demand to international destinations. Information from officially-controlled media includes pictures of crowded airports and enthusiastic consumers getting on planes and trains and buses over the recent Lunar New Year holiday. One Chinese travel website, Jing Daily , has described the situation using a term coined last year by William Swelbar of U.S.- based Swelbar-Zhong consultants to describe the boom: revenge travel . This is when sudden demand is generated by consumers ready to get up and go after being cooped up for months due to Covid restrictions. In the USA, Mr. Swelbar’s research was proven accurate. Over the past 18 months, air travel demand has boomed, particularly to leisure destinations, gobbling up the millions of travel dollars pent-up during the pandemic lock-downs. But whatever the total China air travel market may do, … [Read more...] about Why China’s Rebounding “Revenge Travel” Won’t Include The USA

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Activists hold a protest in front of the Chinese Consular Office in Manila on Jun. 12. The ... [+] protesters shouted slogans against China's reclamation and construction activities on islands and reefs in the Spratly Group of the South China Sea. (NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images) The noose finally appears to be closing on China, well at least a little. First, the Philippines scored a major geopolitical victory last month when The Hague agreed to hear its claim against Beijing’s recent land grabbing and subsequent land reclamation activities in Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands (claimed by both China and the Philippines) in the South China Sea. According to the UN’s mandated 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), much of the area in dispute actually does lie within Manila’s EEZ. Not to be deterred and with little options due to its limited military and economic muscle, Manila now not only has the … [Read more...] about Indonesia Ups The Ante In Disputed South China Sea, Oil And Gas Lurks In The Background

The Economic Survey 2023 noted that the infrastructure expansion has come at a time of crisis when the capital expenditure by the private sector has been subdued. (Representative Image) India's domestic manufacturing and export competitiveness will be driven by the likes of the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, PM Gati Shakti and National Logistics Policy (NLP), the Economic Survey, tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on January 31, said. "Further support to economic growth will come from the expansion of public digital platforms and path-breaking measures such as PM GatiShakti, the National Logistics Policy, and the Production-Linked Incentive schemes to boost manufacturing output," the survey said. Union Minister for Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman on January 31 tabled in Parliament the Economic Survey 2022-2023, which reviews how the economy performed in this fiscal year and the road ahead for the next year. The survey added the government's … [Read more...] about Economic Survey 2023: PM Gati Shakti and National Logistics Policy to support domestic manufacturing, export competitiveness

Bharat Biotech has announced that the vaccine will be priced at Rs 800 per dose for private markets and Rs 325 for governments The US Food and Drug Administration’s key science advisory panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, met on January 26, 2023, to chart a path forward for COVID-19 vaccine policy. During the all-day meeting, the 21-member committee discussed an array of weighty issues including the efficacy of existing vaccines, the composition of future vaccine strains and the need to match them to the circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2, the possibility of moving to an annual-shot model, the potential seasonality of the virus and much more. … [Read more...] about FDA advisory committee votes unanimously in favour of a one-shot COVID-19 vaccine approach – 5 questions answered

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin NYC protest: Even blue states see red over China. Seth Wenig/AP Photo Five months ago, in a round of Asian talks, I said the U.S. and China were in for a long, bumpy stretch but not a full trade war. Half right, I guess! Clearly, relations have grown stiff on multiple fronts. First off, the layers of tariffs are sticking rather than being feints for negotiating advantage. This will gum up global commerce even without accompanying acrimony, and be a net loss for the U.S. and China, and economies in between. But trade parity is far from the only contested ground now.  Each news cycle brings word of tiffs and slights. A variety of military, development and diplomatic rubs have developed, with China's repressive domestic policies always adding background noise to the clamorous "dialogue." President Trump has even taken to the notion that Chinese propaganda is figuring in the election shellacking he is due in … [Read more...] about Cold Reality Sets In On China-U.S. Relations

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday along party lines to end the COVID-19 emergency, though the legislation is likely dead on arrival in the Senate. All 220 voting Republicans supported the Pandemic is Over Act, ending the emergency, and all 210 voting Democrats opposed it. The White House has said that President Joe Biden will allow the public health emergency to expire in May, but that ending it via an act of Congress could eliminate pandemic-era programs like Title 42, student loan forgiveness, and a Medicaid expansion. President Joe Biden said in September 2022 that the COVID-19 pandemic is “over,” but that “we’re still doing a lot of work on it.” The Biden administration has renewed the public health emergency twice since the president made the claim. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Murphy, House Republicans Call On Biden To End COVID Public Health Emergency) Isn’t it funny how Biden declared the COVID-19 pandemic over 4 months ago, and yet, the federal … [Read more...] about House Votes To End COVID-19 Emergency

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin President Biden announced that the national emergency related to the Covid-19 pandemic will end on May 11, over three years after it first began. The official end of the pandemic emergency will impact a wide array of policies — including, potentially, student loan programs. Several student loan debt relief programs, including the ongoing student loan payment pause and Biden’s one-time student loan forgiveness program , have been directly linked to the ongoing national emergency. Here’s what the change may mean for student loan borrowers. Student Loan Payment Pause Extension In response to the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic in March 2020, President Trump used emergency executive authority to pause all payments, freeze interest, and suspend collections for government-held federal student loans. Congress subsequently codified the debt relief through passage of the CARES Act, which provided for six months of … [Read more...] about What Biden’s Latest Covid Move Means For Student Loan Programs, Including Loan Forgiveness

The economic survey 2022-23 under the section titled growth magnets in this decade notes that going forward, there will be Initiatives to sensitise the population towards a healthy lifestyle and introduce strategies to arrest and reverse the rising obesity levels. India’s obesity concerns: According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data, obesity levels in India have increased between the years 2019-2021 and one in every four persons is overweight compared to one in every five earlier. The family health survey notes that there is an overall increase in mean Body Mass Index from 21.9 in 2015-16 to 22.4 in 2019-21. Increase in diabetes rates: According to the International diabetes federation, 1 in 11 Indian may be diabetic, making it the second most affected country after China.  The number is projected to grow by 2045 to become 134 million as per the statistics. Read More Other key growth magnets as per the survey: ·         … [Read more...] about Economic Survey 2023: Policy aspirations to achieve better quality of life