EU-DIGEST

After a month of isolation, more and more people are talking about “opening the country” back up again, or getting back to “normal,” especially in time for the summer. For Ed Yong, a science writer at the Atlantic, the big question about this is: What will “normal” look like? The curve is not flattening in America. We don’t have an exit plan for safely reopening the economy. And we’re way past the point where things could just go back to the way they used to be. Whenever we can go back outside, things will be fundamentally different. We need to prepare for that. 

Read more at: Coronavirus: We’re not going “back to normal.” What will the new normal look like? Ed Yong explains.

The coronavirus outbreak in Germany has become manageable again as the number of patients who have recovered has been higher than the number of new infections every day this week, the health minister said on Friday.

Read more at:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany/germanys-coronavirus-outbreak-manageable-again-as-infection-rate-falls-idUKKBN21Z0QW

 Earlier this week, it looked as though Donald Trump, in all his infinite wisdom, had put his daughter and son-in-law on the council advising the White House on when to “reopen” the country. Given the president’s long history of putting the dynamic duo in charge of matters they have literally no business being anywhere near, and his claim that Ivanka has single-handedly created 15 million jobs, the development appeared unsurprising if not completely absurd.

Luckily, it seems that someone with some ounce of sense intervened, and told Trump he should probably speak to a few actual business executives, if not real-life economists. And what do you know?

Those people have apparently told him it would be absurd to get back to regular life before the government has hugely increased testing capabilities.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in Trump’s first task force meeting of business and political leaders, executives told the president that the administration must dramatically increase the availability of coronavirus testing “before the public would be confident enough to return to work, eat at restaurants or shop in retail

Asked about comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the U.S. wasn’t ready to reopen due to a lack of testing and virus tracing, Trump told executives, “I don’t know what he said. Nobody knows,” adding that “there is tremendous testing and the governors will use whatever testing is necessary—and if they’re not satisfied with their testing, they shouldn’t open.” In fact, governors and health experts alike have repeatedly said the country does not have adequate levels of testing, and that millions of tests should be administered each week before people can go back to work.

Trump, of course, has previously suggested he wants to get people back to business as usual as soon as possible, first throwing out Easter Sunday as a target and, more recently, May 1. He’s also insisted he has the “total” authority to “reopen” the country, which isn’t actually true at all, not only because governors have that power but because that’s not how any of this works. “The opening of a return to modern American life will be a public health decision, period,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former chief economist

Note EU-Digest:Coronavirus testing. The truth is that the US has some 327 million inhabitants, and as Trump proudly stated today 3.25 million tests have been done so far. That is only 1 % of the total population. Not much to brag about.

Read more: Even Business Execs Think Trump Is Nuts to Reopen the Country Without Mass Testing | Vanity Fair

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that it was looking into reports of some COVID-19 patients testing positive again after initially testing negative for the disease while being considered for discharge.

Read more at;
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-who/who-is-investigating-reports-of-recovered-covid-patients-testing-positive-again-idUKKCN21T0F5

Testing is the biggest problem that we’re facing,” Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, said recently in a roundtable on Covid-19 at Harvard Medical School. While South Korea had tested about 4,000 people per million of its population at the time, the United States had just run five tests per million — despite the fact that they both reported their first cases at essentially the same time (on January 21 and 20). The discrepancy was surprising because the genome of the virus had been available since January and scientists had figured out the diagnostics shortly thereafter, using proven molecular methods first discovered in the 1970's.

Based on the total US population of 327.2 million people, the number of people tested so far, based on President Trumps own statement, which he said was a total of 2 million people tested, is a very low number. You don't need to be Einstein to figure that out, based on the total US population.

Read more at:
Why Is the U.S. Behind on Coronavirus Testing?

A350 in Canada for winter endurance tests

Anyone suffering from cold winter weather in the United States should think of the plight of 48 Airbus employees who have taken a test version of the company's new A350 XWB passenger jet to Iqaluit, Canada.

Airbus specialists began testing the new twin-aisle jet in Iqaluit, a small town on Baffin Island, north of Newfoundland and west of Greenland, the company said Tuesday. Airbus debuted the energy-efficient A350 XWB at the Paris air show in June 2013, pitting it chiefly against Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.

The cold-weather testing is geared to confirm that the jet can operate successfully, to include starting the engines and aborting a takeoff, in temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees F, or minus 28 degrees C. The testing also checks if reverse thrust works in snowy conditions, Airbus said. 

The cold-weather testing is geared to confirm that the jet can operate successfully, to include starting the engines and aborting a takeoff, in temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees F, or minus 28 degrees C. The testing also checks if reverse thrust works in snowy conditions, Airbus said.

A different model of the A350 XWB just completed high-elevation testing in Bolivia, Airbus said. 

Read more: Airbus A350 heads to northern Canada for tests in cold, snow | Cutting Edge - CNET News