Is The Past Over? More Lock Downs?

Baltic Dry Index. 1162 -35 Brent Crude 48.45

Spot Gold 1868

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 08/12/20 World 67,940,857

Deaths 1,550,303

“I think we agree, the past is over.”

President George W. Bush.

In the stock gambling houses, more worry. What if the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a day late and a penny short for the real economy? What if the Magic Money Tree forest is a generational fiat money mistake?  For now, such misgivings are only that misgivings. But what if those misgivings turn into reality?

Asian stocks under pressure as pandemic concerns outweigh stimulus hopes

December 8, 2020  12:41 AM  By Pete Schroeder, Julie Zhu

WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks came under pressure on Tuesday as investors struggled to balance hopes for more economic stimulus and vaccines with anxiety over a surge in COVID-19 infections.

A mixed Asian open followed a similarly mixed Wall Street session with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closing at a record high as investors flocked to mega-cap growth stocks, while the two other major U.S. indices fell.

“You saw more than a slight moderation to the S&P 500, and the Dow, but you’re still looking at these markets at record highs,” said Tom Piotrowski, a market analyst with CommSec. “It’s a matter of looking out for what the next catalyst is for these markets.”

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.25%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 inched up 0.23% as gold miners rose on strong bullion prices, though gains were capped by losses in energy stocks triggered by an overnight slump in oil prices.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 narrowed its losses from early trade, down 0.27%, as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga unveiled 73.6 trillion yen ($708 billion) in fresh economic stimulus measures, signalling his resolve to pull the country out of its coronavirus crisis-induced slump.

Chinese blue-chips fell 0.2% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were down 0.62%.

On Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.45% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.49% and the S&P 500 lost 0.19%.

Some investors are watching whether U.S. policymakers can reinvigorate efforts to pass additional pandemic stimulus. The U.S. Congress is expected to vote this week on a one-week stopgap funding bill to give negotiators more time to strike a compromise, as the business community cautioned inaction could spur a deeper recession.

At the same time, California, the nation’s most populous state, announced new restrictions on travel and business activity after record case numbers and hospitalizations. And officials in New York warned similar restrictions could be employed soon, which further weigh on the nation’s recovery.

---- Oil prices fell, adding to losses from the previous session. Brent crude fell 0.68% and U.S. crude dipped 0.59%. Prices came under pressure after Reuters reported the United States was prepping sanctions on at least a dozen Chinese officials over alleged roles in Beijing’s disqualification of elected opposition legislators in Hong Kong.

Spot gold prices were 0.06% higher at $1,864.91 per ounce, and U.S. gold futures settled up 0.25% at $1,870.6, as investors bet on more stimulus money being pumped into the financial system.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/asian-stocks-under-pressure-as-pandemic-concerns-outweigh-stimulus-hopes-idUKKBN28I03S

Back in the real world, a rolling slow motion economic disaster is still growing.

Oil slips as gloom grows over soaring COVID-19 cases, lockdowns

December 8, 2020  2:21 AM  By Sonali Paul, Roslan Khasawneh

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Tuesday, adding to losses from the previous session that came as California tightened its pandemic lockdown through Christmas and coronavirus cases continued to surge in the United States and Europe.

Brent crude futures fell 40 cents, or 0.8%, to $48.39 a barrel at 0455 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 35 cents or 0.8%, to $45.41 a barrel. Both benchmark contracts lost around 1% on Monday.

Globally, a sharp rise in coronavirus cases has led to a string of renewed lockdowns, including strict measures in the U.S. state of California as well as Germany and South Korea.

“The pandemic situation is continuing to be very disruptive in quite a few places in the U.S. and parts of Europe. That’s impacting sentiment on demand near term,” said Lachlan Shaw, National Australia Bank’s head of commodity research.

California on Monday required most of the state to close shop and stay at home under a new order which will last at least three weeks.

“California, one of the U.S. largest road fuel demand states, will be in lockdown lite through what is bound to be a Christmas lite for the oil markets,” said Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at Axi.

Government sources in France said the country may have to delay unwinding some lockdown restrictions next week after signs the downward trend in new cases had flattened out after shops were allowed to reopen late last month.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil/oil-slips-as-gloom-grows-over-soaring-covid-19-cases-lockdowns-idUKKBN28I08S

Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks

By SHARON COHEN

Yesterday

The deadly pandemic that tore through the nation’s heartland struck just as Aaron Crawford was in a moment of crisis. He was looking for work, his wife needed surgery, then the virus began eating away at her work hours and her paycheck.

The Crawfords had no savings, mounting bills and a growing dread: What if they ran out of food? The couple had two boys, 5 and 10, and boxes of macaroni and cheese from the dollar store could go only so far.

A 37-year-old Navy vet, Crawford saw himself as self-reliant. Asking for food made him uncomfortable. “I felt like I was a failure,” he says. “It’s this whole stigma ... this mindset that you’re this guy who can’t provide for his family, that you’re a deadbeat.”

Hunger is a harsh reality in the richest country in the world. Even during times of prosperity, schools hand out millions of hot meals a day to children, and desperate elderly Americans are sometimes forced to choose between medicine and food.

Now, in the pandemic of 2020, with illness, job loss and business closures, millions more Americans are worried about empty refrigerators and barren cupboards. Food banks are doling out meals at a rapid pace and an Associated Press data analysis found a sharp rise in the amount of food distributed compared with last year. Meanwhile, some folks are skipping meals so their children can eat and others are depending on cheap food that lacks nutrition.

Those fighting hunger say they’ve never seen anything like this in America, even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

The first place many Americans are finding relief is a neighborhood food pantry, most connected to vast networks of nonprofits. Tons of food move each day from grocery store discards and government handouts to warehouse distribution centers, and then to the neighborhood charity.

More

https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-4c7f1705c6d8ef5bac241e6cc8e331bb

Restaurant Closings Top 110,000 With Industry in ‘Free Fall’

Carolina Gonzalez 13 hrs ago

(Bloomberg) -- More than 110,000 restaurants have closed permanently or long-term across the country as the industry grapples with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. And more pain is ahead, with a potential shutdown of indoor dining in New York City just as the temperatures drop.

The nationwide tally -- representing one in six U.S. eateries -- is among the findings of a survey released Monday by the National Restaurant Association. The figure was up from about 100,000 shutdowns in a September survey. The Washington-based trade group shared the latest results with Congressional leaders in an attempt to secure financial support for a sector rocked by rising costs and falling sales.

“The restaurant industry simply cannot wait for relief any longer,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the association, said in a letter to Congress. “What these findings make clear is that more than 500,000 restaurants of every business type -- franchise, chain and independent -- are in an economic free fall.”

As people continue to stay and eat at home and new indoor dining bans emerge across the country, restaurateurs have struggled to keep up sales, with many of the hardest-hit areas in states such as New York and Illinois. Almost 90% of full-service restaurants in the survey reported declines, with revenue falling 36% on average.

Expenses are also climbing amid the pandemic, with 59% of operators saying their total labor costs as a percentage of sales are higher than they were pre-pandemic.

Read More: Indoor Dining Goes Dark Across U.S., Deepening Restaurants’ Pain

The industry has pleaded for aid, with many pinning their hopes on the Restaurants Act, which would establish a $120 billion fund to help restaurants, as well as a second draw of the Paycheck Protection Program.

In the meantime, the sector faces dire prospects. Thirty-seven percent of operators say it is unlikely their restaurant will still be in business six months from now if there are no additional government relief packages, according to the survey. More than one in three operators are considering temporarily closing until conditions improve.

With Covid cases on the rise, Governor Andrew Cuomo said indoor dining would be shut down in New York City and reduced across the rest of the state if the regional hospitalization rate has not stabilized after five days.

The pain is felt among publicly traded chains as well as independent establishments. An S&P index of restaurant stocks fell as much as 1.3% Monday, with Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc., BJ’s Restaurants Inc. and Cheesecake Factory Inc. among the biggest decliners. Each have relatively large exposure to California, which continues to be rattled by lockdowns, wildfires and forced power outages.

“It’s hard to look past the current very difficult restaurant industry sales and traffic trends for rays of industry sunshine,” Telsey Advisory Group analyst Bob Derrington wrote in a note. He expects sales trends to remain “volatile” into 2021 as more states and municipalities are “once again cracking down on social gatherings including dining in bars and restaurants.”

More

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/over-110000-restaurants-have-closed-with-sector-in-free-fall/ar-BB1bHMHy

The Latest: Australia to extend ban on leaving country

The Associated Press  17 minutes ago

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia is extending its ban on international cruise ships and on Australians leaving the country except under exceptional circumstances for another three months until March.

The extension announced Tuesday means the human biosecurity emergency declaration will last for at least a year despite COVID-19 cases declining in the isolated nation.

Australia has imposed some of the most severe border restrictions in the world since the pandemic began, requiring most of its citizens and permanent residents to apply for a permit and prove exceptional circumstances if they need to leave the country.

Australia is a nation of 26 million people. Latest government figures showed on Monday there were only 1,618 active COVID-19 cases, with 30 of those infected in hospitals.

Thousands of Australians have missed out on funerals, weddings and the births of relatives because of the travel ban which is designed to prevent travelers from bringing with virus home.

https://apnews.com/article/international-news-pandemics-australia-coronavirus-pandemic-united-nations-general-assembly-ffa6578ee348994909e6cdf502a19831

Finally, is 2021 just going to be a scaled down repeat of 2020?

Next year's Paris Airshow cancelled amid coronavirus crisis

December 7, 2020  10:30 AM

PARIS (Reuters) - Next year’s Paris Airshow has been cancelled as the aerospace industry continues to weather the coronavirus crisis, a spokesman for the French organisers said on Monday.

Together with Britain’s Farnborough Airshow, with which it alternates every other year, the event is the industry’s largest showcase. Its cancellation is the latest sign of the depth of the pandemic-related crisis hitting airlines and manufacturers.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-airshow/next-years-paris-airshow-cancelled-amid-coronavirus-crisis-idUKKBN28H11Z?il=0

Winter Watch.

From around mid-October, the northern hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually expands back towards its winter maximum.

Over simplified, a rapid expansion of both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record Atlantic hurricane season.

Update: we seem to have started new sunspot cycle 25 this month , though it’s unlikely to affect 2020-2021s coming winter.

Northern Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in mid-October.  The Arctic sea ice expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation sped up.

With the Laptev sea ice virtually back to normal at the end of November I think that it will likely be a normal to slightly warmer winter ahead for western Europe.

The failure of the Kara Sea ice to return to normal, leads me to bet on a warmer western European winter ahead.

Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

 

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Hailing 'turning point', Britain begins roll-out of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine

December 8, 2020  12:21 AM  By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will start rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus.

The mass inoculation will fuel hope that the world may be turning a corner in the fight against a pandemic that has crushed economies and killed more than 1.5 million, although ultra-cold storage and tricky logistics will limit its use for now.

Britain is the worst-hit European country from COVID-19, with over 61,000 deaths, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes to turn the tide against the disease by rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine before the United States or European Union.

Britain approved the vaccine for emergency use less than a week ago, and is rolling it out through its National Health Service (NHS).

---- In total Britain has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. As each person requires two doses, that is enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million.

About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care home residents and carers, the over 80s and some health service workers the top priority to get them.

The roll-out provides a test case for Pfizer and BioNTech’s distribution networks. The shot must be stored at -70C (-94F) and only lasts five days in a regular fridge.

While Britain is relatively small and has good infrastructure, the logistical challenges mean it will first be applied in 50 hospitals and cannot yet be taken into care homes.

Pfizer and BioNTech said their shot proved 95% effective in preventing illness in final-stage trials. In all, Britain has ordered 357 million doses of seven different COVID-19 vaccines.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-vaccine/hailing-turning-point-britain-begins-roll-out-of-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-idUKKBN28I00J

UK trial to mix and match Covid vaccines to try to improve potency

Pilot planned for January will give subjects a shot of both Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech versions

Tue 8 Dec 2020 00.01 GMT

A trial is likely to go ahead in January to find out whether mixing and matching Covid vaccines gives better protection than two doses of the same one, the head of the British government’s taskforce has said.

The trial will begin if the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is approved in the coming weeks, as is hoped. The treatment can only be administered with licensed vaccines.

The news comes as the first British patients begin receiving coronavirus vaccinations from Tuesday, a jab made by Pfizer/BioNTech, a week after the UK became the first country in the western world to approve a Covid vaccine.

Those who take part in January’s trial will get one shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine and one of the Pfizer injection. A vaccine from US biotech firm Moderna will also be included if it gets approval.

Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines have both been shown to have 95% efficacy at protecting people against the virus. For AstraZeneca’s, efficacy was 62% among the largest cohort given two doses, but rose to 90% among a smaller group given half a dose initially, followed by a full dose.

Kate Bingham, outgoing chair of the UK’s vaccine taskforce, said the “mix and match” trials were not about making limited supplies of the vaccines go further. The UK government has ordered 40m doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 100m of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s candidate.

“It’s not being done because of supplies,” said Bingham. “It’s to do with trying to trigger the immune response and the durability and nothing to do with what vaccines we’ve got.”

The concept is known as a heterologous prime-boost. “It means mix and matching vaccines,” said Bingham. “So you do a prime with one vaccine and then the second – whether it’s 28 days or two months or whatever the agreed periods would be – would be with a different vaccine.”

More

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/08/covid-mixed-vaccine-trial-likely-to-begin-in-uk-next-month

COVID-19 clusters break out in Japan's coldest city as winter closes in

December 7, 2020  5:45 AM  By Rocky Swift, Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - The emergence of Japan’s coldest city as a COVID-19 hotspot has raised fears among health experts that it could be a sign of what the rest of the nation may face as winter sets in and more people stay indoors, raising airborne transmission risks.

The city of Asahikawa, about 140 km (87 miles) north of Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido, is reeling from infection clusters at two hospitals and a care home. By Sunday, the number of cases recorded on the island was more than 10,000, and Asahikawa had accounted for 16% of the 256 deaths.

It prompted the government to announce a plan on Monday to send nurses from Self Defense Forces to the region and western metropolis of Osaka to help fight the outbreak.

“Hokkaido is a place where due to the climate conditions people tend to have the heater on very high and in very closed spaces as well,” said Haruo Ozaki, president of the Tokyo Medical Association.

“In places such as Tokyo and Osaka, it will also be getting colder from now. When we add this coldness factor, it shows that we need to express a lot more caution or we could face a further spread of contagion.”

Asahikawa, a city of 340,000 people, holds the record for Japan’s lowest recorded temperature of -41C (-41.8F) in 1902. Researchers have warned that airborne transmission of the virus increase when people spend more time in closed-up rooms breathing dry air.

“Asahikawa and including Sapporo are in a various serious condition in terms of the pandemic,” said Dr. Yasutaka Kakinoki at Asahikawa City hospital. The burgeoning caseload has brought the health system in Asahikawa to “near collapse”, he said.

Asahikawa Kosei Hospital has been the site of 224 infections of patients and staff, prompting the facility to turn away all but the most critical cases.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-japan-hokkaido/covid-19-clusters-break-out-in-japans-coldest-city-as-winter-closes-in-idUKKBN28H0D6

Wastewater testing for COVID-19 could soon be a reality

Dec. 7, 2020 / 1:51 PM

Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Researchers and public health officials in the United States could soon be using wastewater surveillance to monitor local rates of COVID-19 transmission.

New research showed settled solid samples collected from sewage treatment facilities hosted higher concentrations of coronavirus viral fragments.

According to the new analysis, detailed Monday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, coronavirus RNA was more difficult to detect in liquid samples.

"These results confirmed our early thinking that targeting the solids in wastewater would lead to sensitive and reproducible measurements of COVID-19 in a community," co-senior author Krista Wigginton said in a news release.

"This means that we can track upward trends when cases are still relatively low," said Wigginton, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Michigan.

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers suggested wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 could help officials deploy more targeted interventions and snuff out local outbreaks before they can spread beyond control.

By tracking the levels of viral fragments in local wastewater samples, wastewater monitoring can allow researchers to determine whether infection rates in a given location are trending up or down.

To utilize wastewater surveillance strategy, scientists need to know how levels of RNA fragments from the virus correspond to levels of COVID-19 infection in local communities.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed 100 settled solid samples from the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility between mid-March and mid-July.

Scientists used statistical models to compare the changing concentrations of genetic material from coronavirus in the waste samples to the shifting numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in San Jose-Santa Clara.

RELATED Europe leads continents in COVID cases, deaths per capita; infections pass 67M

Viral fragments in the sewage samples followed the same pattern as confirmed cases, declining in May and June, before peaking in July.

Researchers suggest the monitoring technique could be used to help measure the effectiveness of local mitigation efforts, as well as the impacts of reopening decisions.

However, scientists suggest more work must be done to understand how rates of viral shedding and decay influence detection efforts.

Researchers are currently preparing to roll out a new wastewater surveillance pilot program across eight wastewater treatment plants in California. The program will offer local public health officials real-time data on viral concentrations.

With COVID-19 cases rising rapidly across the state, officials in Southern California recently issued new lockdown restrictions.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/12/07/Wastewater-testing-for-COVID-19-could-soon-be-a-reality/6881607352358/

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live 

https://wuflu.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

 

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21^st century onwards.

Cooling electronics efficiently with graphene-enhanced heat pipes

Date: December 3, 2020

Source: Chalmers University of Technology

Summary: Researchers have found that graphene-based heat pipes can help solve the problems of cooling electronics and power systems used in avionics, data centres, and other power electronics.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have found that graphene-based heat pipes can help solve the problems of cooling electronics and power systems used in avionics, data centres, and other power electronics.

"Heat pipes are one of the most efficient tools for this purpose, because of their high efficiency and unique ability to transfer heat over a large distance," says Johan Liu, Professor of Electronics Production, at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers.

The results, which also involved researchers in China and Italy, were recently published in the scientific Open Access journal Nano Select.

Electronics and data centres need to be efficiently cooled in order to work properly. Graphene enhanced heat pipes can solve these issues. Currently, heat pipes are usually made of copper, aluminium or their alloys. Due to the relatively high density and limited heat transmission capacity of these materials, heat pipes are facing severe challenges in future power devices and data centres.

Large data centres that deliver, for example, digital banking services and video streaming websites, are extremely energy-intensive, and an environmental culprit with greater emissions than the aviation industry. Reducing the climate footprint of this industry is therefore vital. The researchers' discoveries here could make a significant energy efficiency contribution to these data centres, and in other applications too.

The graphene enhanced heat pipe exhibits a specific thermal transfer coefficient which is about 3.5 times better than that of copper-based heat pipe. The new findings pave the way for using graphene enhanced heat pipes in lightweight and large capacity cooling applications, as required in many applications such as avionics, automotive electronics, laptop computers, handsets, data centres as well as space electronics.

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201203113245.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

The Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914. Royal Navy Victory.

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a First World War naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the German cruiser squadron. The battle is commemorated every year on 8 December in the Falkland Islands as a public holiday.

---- Visibility was at its maximum; the sea was placid with a gentle breeze, and the day was bright and sunny. The vanguard cruisers of the German squadron were detected early. By nine o'clock that morning, the British battlecruisers and cruisers were in hot pursuit of the German vessels. All except Dresden and Seydlitz were hunted down and sunk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands