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The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to lift a moratorium on evictions that had been imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh in the majority.
The court gave no reasons for its ruling, which is typical when it acts on emergency applications. But Justice Kavanaugh issued a brief concurring opinion explaining that he had cast his vote reluctantly and had taken account of the impending expiration of the moratorium.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exceeded its existing statutory authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “Because the C.D.C. plans to end the moratorium in only a few weeks, on July 31, and because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds, I vote at this time to deny the application” that had been filed by landlords, real estate companies and trade associations.
He added that the agency might not extend the moratorium on its own. “In my view,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the C.D.C. to extend the moratorium past July 31.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, Congress declared a moratorium on evictions, which lapsed last July. The C.D.C. then issued a series of its own moratoriums.
“In doing so,” the challengers told the justices, “the C.D.C. shifted the pandemic’s financial burdens from the nation’s 30 to 40 million renters to its 10 to 11 million landlords — most of whom, like applicants, are individuals and small businesses — resulting in over $13 billion in unpaid rent per month.” The total cost to the nation’s landlords, they wrote, could approach $200 billion.
The moratorium defers but does not cancel the obligation to pay rent; the challengers wrote that this “massive wealth transfer” would “never be fully undone.” Many renters, they wrote, will be unable to pay what they owe. “In reality,” they wrote, “the eviction moratorium has become an instrument of economic policy rather than of disease control.”
In urging the Supreme Court to leave the moratorium in place, the government said that continued vigilance against the spread of the coronavirus was needed and noted that Congress has appropriated tens of billions of dollars to pay for rent arrears.
Credit…Allison Zaucha for The New York Times
After World Health Organization officials urged fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks out of concern about the global spread of the Delta variant, New York City and Los Angeles County appear to now be taking slightly diverging approaches.
New York and California lifted virtually all coronavirus restrictions on businesses and social gatherings nearly two weeks ago, signs of immense progress after New York City and Los Angeles County suffered devastating waves of the virus. Both states have followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask guidance that allowed for fully vaccinated people to go maskless in most situations. (Exceptions remained for health care settings and public transit, among others.)
On Monday, though, Los Angeles County said that it strongly recommended that everyone wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status as a precaution against the Delta variant. By contrast, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said on Tuesday that fully vaccinated municipal office employees are no longer required to wear masks or adhere to social-distancing protocol inside their offices. Unvaccinated municipal workers and those who interact with the public must continue to wear masks.
“We will make adjustments when we see real, consistent evidence, but so far, the data is telling us, in fact, things keep moving in the right direction,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference.
Public health experts generally agree that getting vaccinated offers the best protection against any type of the virus, and that the Delta variant is unlikely to pose much risk to people who have been fully vaccinated.
As of Monday, Los Angeles County had a daily average of three new virus cases per 100,000 people over the past week, while New York City had a daily average of two per 100,000 over the same time period, according to a New York Times database.
In Los Angeles County, where 50 percent of residents are fully vaccinated, the Delta variant accounted for nearly half of all cases sequenced in the week ending June 12, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said on Monday.
“Until we better understand how and to who the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection with minimum interruption to routine as all businesses operate without other restrictions,” county officials said in a statement, noting that social distancing and capacity limits are not required.
When the C.D.C. issued its mask guidance on May 13, New York State adopted it within a few days, though New York City’s health commissioner still recommended residents wear masks indoors.
As of Tuesday morning, about 60 percent of the city’s adult residents and about 51 percent of all residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the city’s health data.
About 80,000 workers were required to return to the office on May 3, after more than a year of remote work, in a signal that the city was beginning to reopen.
Still, officials have been cautiously watching the Delta variant, worried about a possible resurgence of cases as restrictions have eased, the city has reopened and New Yorkers scarred from the restrictions and trauma of last year have resumed gathering together.
“Right now, we are winning the race against the Delta variant,” Mr. de Blasio said, adding that he did not expect the city to reimpose restrictions or shut down again.
As of June 12, the last date for which data is available, 22.7 percent of new cases in the city were identified as the Delta variant, the city’s health data shows, though the rate comes from a relatively low sample of about 100 cases.
So far there has been little evidence that fully vaccinated New Yorkers need to take greater precautions because of the Delta variant, said Mitchell Katz, the chief executive of the city’s public hospital system.
“Overwhelmingly, the vaccine works against the Delta variant, and so people can keep their masks off if they’ve been fully vaccinated,” Mr. Katz said.
In Chicago, the top health official on Tuesday said during a social media question-and-answer session that the city would be sticking with the C.D.C.’s guidance.
“Right now, while our outbreak remains in very good control locally, even with the Delta here, there’s not a reason to adjust that guidance,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Daniel E. Slotnik and Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.
Credit…Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service, via Associated Press
SEOUL — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said that lapses in his country’s anti-pandemic campaign have caused a “great crisis” that posed “grave consequences,” state media reported on Wednesday.
Mr. Kim did not clarify whether the incident meant an outbreak of Covid-19 in North Korea, where the authorities until now claim to have found no cases of the virus. But state media reported that the incident was serious enough for Mr. Kim to convene a meeting of the Political Bureau of his ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday, during which Mr. Kim reshuffled the top party leadership.
Senior officials neglected implementing anti-virus measures and had created “a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people,” Mr. Kim said.
Mr. Kim mentioned the unspecified incident as an example when he berated party officials for their “ignorance, disability and irresponsibility,” said the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. During the meeting, a detailed report was made on officials accused of neglecting their duties in fighting the pandemic and improving the economic lives of the people, it said.
It indicated that there would be some “legal” consequences for the officials.
The news agency said that some members of the Politburo and its Presidium, as well as some Workers’ Party secretaries, have been replaced. It did not provide further details. In North Korea, all power is concentrated in the monolithic leadership of Mr. Kim, and he has frequently reshuffled the party and military elites, holding them responsible for policy failures.
The North claims officially to be free of Covid-19, although outside experts remain skeptical, citing the country’s public health system and lack of extensive testing.
But North Korea, aware of its vulnerability to epidemics, has also enforced some of the harshest measures against the spread of the virus.
Last year, it created a buffer zone along the border with China, issuing a shoot-to-kill order to stop unauthorized crossings, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. South Korean lawmakers briefed by their government’s National Intelligence Service last year have said that North Korea executed an official for violating a trade ban imposed to fight the virus.
Last July, when a man from South Korea defected to the North, North Korea declared a national emergency for fear he might have brought the virus.
But Mr. Kim has also shown confidence that at least his inner circles were virus-free, sometimes presiding over meetings of party elites where no one wore masks.
During the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Kim urged party officials to double down on his efforts to build a “self-reliant” economy. As North Korea’s economy has been hit hard by the pandemic, Mr. Kim has acknowledged that his five-year plan for growth had failed and instructed his officials to wage an “arduous march” through difficult economic times.This month, he warned of a looming food shortage.
The party meeting on Tuesday “suggests that the situation in the country has worsened beyond the capacity of self-reliance,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
“Pyongyang may be setting up a domestic political narrative to allow the acceptance of foreign vaccines and pandemic assistance,” he said. “Kim is likely to blame scapegoats for this incident, purging disloyal government officials and replacing them with others considered more capable.”
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The coronavirus has reversed a steady rise in life expectancy in Brazil, which saw an estimated decline of 1.3 years in 2020 and an even more accelerated drop during the first months of 2021, according to a new report published in the Nature Medicine journal.
Significant, abrupt declines in mortality rates are rare and Brazil’s represents a major blow given the strides the country had made in improving health outcomes in recent decades, said Marcia Castro, the chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard University, who was the lead author of the study.
“We expect declines of this magnitude when you have a major shock that leads to high mortality, like a war or a pandemic,” she said.
More than 514,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Brazil, a death toll surpassed only by that in the United States, which has lost more than 604,000 people. Even so, the United States, which has a considerably larger population, experienced a slightly lower life expectancy drop last year: 1.13 years.
The pandemic has continued to steadily worsen in Brazil, where vaccinations have lagged. At least 18 million Brazilians have been infected so far, or at least one in 11 people, and the country is averaging over 68,000 new cases and over 1,600 deaths a day, according to official data. But, as in India, which has the world’s third-largest official death toll, many experts believe the numbers understate the true scope of the country’s epidemic. So far, about a third of Brazil’s population has had at least one shot of a vaccine, according to Our World in Data.
Latin America is home to seven of the 10 countries with the highest average daily death toll per person, according to a New York Times database. Colombia recently surpassed 100,000 recorded Covid-19 deaths this week, only the 10th country to pass that milestone.
The decline in life expectancy is a jarring setback for Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation, which has spent billions of dollars in recent decades to expand the reach and quality of its universal public health care system.
Between 1945 and 2020, life expectancy in Brazil increased from 45.5 years to 76.7 years, an average of about five months per year. The setbacks of the Covid-19 era have reverted the country to 2014 levels, according to the study.
Brazil experienced a second wave of coronavirus cases in the first few months of this year that has been far deadlier than the first one, which receded at the end of 2020.
Ms. Castro and fellow researchers estimated that the resulting decline in life expectancy for 2021, based on the death toll recorded in the first four months of the year, will be about 1.78 years.
States in the Amazon region — including Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Mato Grosso — experienced the steepest declines in life expectancy last year. Ms. Castro said states in the northeast, where governors imposed relatively strict quarantine measures, experienced lower drops.
Ms. Castro said Brazil’s life expectancy rate is likely to decline even more as the virus continues to kill hundreds of people each day, many of whom are relatively young. The average daily death toll for the past week was 1,644, according to a New York Times tracker.
“The decline in 2021 is going to be just horrible,” Ms. Castro said. “We are now losing even younger people.”
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Countries across the Asia-Pacific region are scrambling to slow the spread of the more infectious Delta variant, reimposing restrictions and stay-at-home orders in a jarring reminder — for societies that had just begun to reopen — that the pandemic is far from over.
In Australia, outbreaks of the variant have forced four major cities — Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin — into strict lockdowns. On Monday, the Malaysian government said nationwide stay-at-home orders would be extended indefinitely. And Hong Kong officials banned flights from Britain, where cases of the Delta variant, which was first identified in India, are rising fast.
In Bangladesh, soldiers are preparing to patrol the streets to enforce stay-at-home orders, with new cases rapidly approaching their early April peak. “The Delta variant of Covid-19 is dominating,” said Robed Amin, a health ministry spokesman, adding that testing suggested the strain was responsible for more than 60 percent of new cases.
The lockdowns and restrictions have deflated hopes across the region, where many countries avoided the worst of the pandemic’s initial spread last year. Now, weary residents are frustrated by what some describe as their countries’ pandemic regression, as other parts of the world edge toward normalcy.
Outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city, a restaurant owner, Marcus Low, bemoaned the fourth lockdown of the pandemic. Daily infections in Malaysia peaked in early June, but even after weeks of lockdown, new cases have dipped by only 5 percent over the past two weeks, according to New York Times data. Only 6 percent of the country’s 33 million people are fully vaccinated.
“My restaurant is known for its hospitality and shared dishes, the antithesis of social distancing,” Mr. Low said. For his and other small businesses struggling to survive, this lockdown “might be the last straw,” he said.
Others blamed slow vaccination drives for a return to restrictions. Public health experts generally agree that getting vaccinated offers the best protection against any type of the virus.
Credit…Loren Elliott/Reuters
“If we were able to get a really high vaccination rate, that changes the game completely,” said Hassan Vally, an associate professor in epidemiology at La Trobe University in Melbourne. With less than 5 percent of Australia’s population fully vaccinated, he said, “in some ways, where we’re at now is no surprise.”
The Delta variant is one of several “variants of concern” identified by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though estimates of its infectiousness differ, the variant could be 50 percent more contagious than the already faster-spreading Alpha variant, which emerged in Britain last year, health officials say.
Studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccines are still largely effective against the Delta variant, though protection is significantly lower for those who are partially vaccinated. But the experiences of several countries show that the Delta variant can spread rapidly through the unvaccinated, including children.
“Anywhere you carry out vaccination, the disease will be pushed into the unvaccinated population,” said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Countries that have vaccinated relatively high percentages of their populations are moving ahead with reopening plans. In Britain, where the Delta variant now accounts for almost all new cases, officials say they still plan to lift most remaining pandemic restrictions on July 19. New cases there have more than doubled in the past two weeks, but officials believe that the country remains well protected, with nearly half the population fully vaccinated.
“While cases are now ticking up, the number of deaths remains mercifully low,” the country’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, said on Monday.
In Ireland, Prime Minister Michael Martin announced on Tuesday that the planned return of indoor drinking and dining by July 5 would be delayed because of concerns about the spread of the Delta variant.
Once the restrictions are lifted, only patrons who are fully vaccinated or have already recovered from Covid-19 will be allowed to dine inside. Forty-eight percent of Ireland’s residents have received at least one vaccine dose so far, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
Experts say that as long as the virus continues to circulate, it can acquire mutations that may present new challenges. In India, where a devastating second wave this spring caused thousands of deaths daily, Maharashtra state has reimposed partial stay-at-home orders in response to the emergence of what has become known locally as “Delta Plus,” described by scientists as a sub-lineage of the Delta variant.
Indian health officials have expressed concern that Delta Plus could spread even more easily in a massive population of 1.4 billion, with less than 5 percent fully vaccinated. In an effort to increase vaccine supplies, the country on Tuesday authorized the use of a fourth vaccine, Moderna. “There is the possibility of the third wave,” said Maharashtra’s chief minister, Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray.
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W.H.O. Urges Precautions Over Delta Variant
World Health Organization officials are urging the public to continue to follow social distancing measures, wear masks and take other precautions over concern about the spread of the Delta variant.
I know that globally, there is currently a lot of concern about the Delta variant and W.H.O. is concerned about it, too. Delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far, has been identified in at least 85 countries and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations. As some countries ease public health and social measures, we’re starting to see increases in transmission around the world. More cases means more hospitalizations, further stretching health workers and health systems, which increases the risk of death. That makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission: the tailored and consistent use of public health and social measures in combination with equitable vaccination. This is why W.H.O. has been saying for at least a year that vaccines must be distributed equitably, to protect health workers and the most vulnerable.
World Health Organization officials are urging the public to continue to follow social distancing measures, wear masks and take other precautions over concern about the spread of the Delta variant.CreditCredit…Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA, via Shutterstock
World Health Organization officials, concerned about the Delta variant, have urged even fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks and taking other precautions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, told fully vaccinated Americans in May that they no longer needed to wear masks indoors or to stay six feet from other people. The agency also eased advice about testing and quarantine after suspected exposure.
Asked on Monday about the W.H.O.’s cautions, a C.D.C. spokesman pointed to the existing guidance and gave no indication it would change.
The Delta variant, a highly infectious form of the virus that has spread to at least 85 countries since it was first identified in India, is now responsible for one in every five Covid-19 cases across the United States. Its prevalence here has doubled in the past two weeks, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, has called it “the greatest threat” to eliminating the virus in the United States. Public health experts generally agree that getting vaccinated offers the best protection against any type of the virus.
Los Angeles County said on Monday that it strongly recommended that everyone wear masks indoors as a precaution against the Delta variant, adding that it accounted for nearly half of all cases sequenced in the county.
“Until we better understand how and to who the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection with minimum interruption to routine as all businesses operate without other restrictions,” county officials said in a statement.
The rise of new variants “makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the W.H.O., said at a news briefing on Friday.
Credit…Patricia De Melo Moreira/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The comments were made in the context of broader statements criticizing inequitable distribution of vaccines and the lack of access to vaccination in many parts of the world.
Though fully vaccinated people are largely protected, studies suggest the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy against the Delta variant is slightly lower than against other variants, and significantly lower for individuals who have received only one dose.
Britain — where some two-thirds of the population have received at least one dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine and just under half have received two — has seen a sharp rise in cases driven by the variant. And Israel, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, has partially reimposed mask mandates in response to an uptick in cases.
Given how fast-moving the variant is, “the vaccine approach is not enough,” said Eric Feigl-Ding, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “We’re not at the level of vaccinations where we can release the brakes on everything else.”
Other scientists disagreed, saying guidance has to be tailored to local conditions.
“The W.H.O. is looking at a world that is largely unvaccinated, so this makes sense,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, adding that parts of the United States might also need different advice.
“If I were living in Missouri or Wyoming or Mississippi, places with low vaccination rates,” he said, “I would not be excited about going indoors without wearing a mask — even though I’m vaccinated.”
In other news from around the world:
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The African Union and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have voiced concerns that a planned European Union digital travel pass does not cover people vaccinated with Covishield, the shot made at the Serum Institute of India on which many low-income countries have relied. The vaccine is the same as the one manufactured by AstraZeneca, which has E.U. approval and is included in the E.U. travel pass, but the Serum Institute has not received its own separate E.U. authorization to market the shot under the name Covishield. In a joint statement, the A.U. and the Africa C.D.C. said the exclusion was “concerning” and urged Brussels to expand its list of acceptable vaccines.
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Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, will bar unvaccinated residents over the age of 15 from accessing most public places from Aug. 20, including schools and universities as well as malls, gyms, restaurants, cafes and cultural venues. The new rules were announced on Twitter by the government’s media office on Monday, and come as an Emirati federal authority reported a rise in cases and deaths linked to the more infectious Delta variant, according to Reuters.
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The United States will start sending 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Bangladesh, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday. The shipment, part of President Biden’s pledge to dispatch doses to countries in need, follows an announcement on Monday that the U.S. would start sending two million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Peru and 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Pakistan. A shipment of 1.5 million Moderna doses to Honduras was announced over the weekend.
Credit…Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
Got the sniffles? Worried about that night out in a crowded club? Or maybe you just want to visit grandma but are concerned about her risk, even though you’re vaccinated against the coronavirus.
At-home rapid virus tests, which give results in minutes, can be useful and reassuring for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Given the availability of vaccines for all people 12 and older in the United States, it may be hard to imagine why anyone would still need a home test. But the coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon, and a rise in infections this fall among the unvaccinated appears inevitable.
In most cases, regular home testing isn’t necessary for someone who is fully vaccinated. The vaccines available in the United States have been shown to be effective against the variants, including Delta. But breakthrough infections, although rare, continue to occur.
A home test can offer reassurance to a vaccinated person who has traveled recently or spent time in a crowded bar. It can be used more frequently for families with young children who aren’t yet eligible for vaccination.
Here are some scenarios in which a rapid home test may be useful:
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For unvaccinated children, who could be tested periodically before going to camp or school or right before a birthday party.
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To regularly check and protect the health of a babysitter who spends time with your unvaccinated children, or a home-health aide who is caring for a high-risk individual.
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As an added precaution for a vaccinated person who wants to spend time with a grandparent or someone who is immune compromised. (An unvaccinated person shouldn’t spend time indoors with a person at high risk.)
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To be sure a cough or sniffle is just allergies or a common cold rather than Covid-19.
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To test houseguests before a dinner party or overnight stay, if someone in the group is unvaccinated or at high risk.
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For guests at weddings or other large gatherings if they can’t provide proof of vaccination.
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The British government introduced a new exemption to its quarantine rules on Tuesday for business travelers “bringing significant economic benefit” to England, but the move is unlikely to quell frustrations that certain travel routes in and out of Britain remain effectively shut.
The exemption has strict criteria and applies only to executives whose work supports at least 500 British jobs. It is much tighter than one that was in place for about six weeks from early December, when travelers needed to support only 50 jobs in Britain.
There has been a growing concern that Britain’s strict travel rules could lead the country to miss out on business opportunities as other countries welcome the return of travelers, especially from the United States. Since Britain left the European Union, it is also particularly anxious about not losing lucrative business activity to its neighbors across the English Channel.
Parts of Britain, such as the financial and legal district of the City of London, rely heavily on the presence of large multinational corporations. But most people entering the country either must quarantine for 10 days and take coronavirus tests on the second and eighth days or must pay for an additional test to end their self-isolation after five days.
Earlier this month, France reopened its borders to vaccinated American tourists, and last week, Germany said all Americans could enter the country.
Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, met with President Emmanuel Macron of France this week in Paris and opened up a new European Union trading hub on Tuesday. The bank is increasing the number of staff in Paris to 700 by the end of the year, up from 265 before Britain left the European Union. But Mr. Dimon won’t be stopping in Britain, where the company has 19,000 employees and offices in four cities, as he has in past trips to Europe, because of the country’s travel restrictions.
Any executives hoping to leave quarantine will have to meet strict requirements, including proving that the work being done in England “has a greater than 50 percent chance of creating or preserving at least 500 U.K.-based jobs” at a company that already has at least 500 employees or at a new British business. Executives have to apply to the government and get written approval, which can take up to five days, before traveling. When the executive isn’t doing business activity, they must self-isolate at all other times, the government said.
For more than a year, only a handful of flights each day have operated between New York and London, which used to be one of the world’s busiest travel routes. There are even fewer direct flights from London to other major American cities.
The issue of limited flights between New York and London has been raised several times a day, said Emanuel Adam, the executive director in London of BritishAmerican Business, which represents some trans-Atlantic companies.
“It’s frustrating to many businesses and scary because they don’t know yet what it will mean down the line,” he said.
At the same time, businesses are conscious of the health concerns raised by the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus in Britain, he said. And now, restrictions against Britons are tightening; this week, Hong Kong barred all travelers from Britain.
In March 2020, President Donald J. Trump banned nearly all non-Americans traveling from Britain, and President Biden has kept the rule in place. There was a small breakthrough at the Group of 7 meetings in Britain earlier this month when the two sides agreed to set up a working group to restart international travel, but likelihood of an agreement for travel to return before the fall is reportedly getting slimmer.
“Many other countries have introduced similar exemptions, and it is important the U.K. does not lose out on prospective major investments and new jobs as a result,” a government representative said in a statement.
Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated Press
The global economy is entering a new stage of the recovery from the pandemic, in which policymakers must prepare for “different but no less formidable challenges,” the Bank of International Settlements said on Tuesday.
In its annual economic report, the organization, whose 63 members include the world’s largest central banks, warned that the recovery had so far been “incomplete and uneven” as emerging market economies (aside from China) have lagged behind, the euro area is trailing its peers, and the services sector is recovering more slowly.
“While the recovery has been faster and stronger than anyone would have imagined a year ago, we are not out of the woods yet,” Agustín Carstens, the group’s general manager, said.
Monetary policy by central banks and fiscal policy by governments need to remain supportive but also be flexible, the report said. One of the biggest challenges facing policymakers is how they might respond to a persistent rise in inflation. Though many, including officials at the Federal Reserve, say they strongly believe that the current increase in prices is temporary, traders and investors are wary of being caught out by a sudden change in this stance that leads to higher interest rates or the end of bond-buying programs.
The bank’s report contemplates three paths for the recovery, including one in which inflation exceeds expectations because of fiscal stimulus, particularly in the United States, and consumers spend more of their savings than anticipated. Higher-than-expected inflation would “severely” test central banks, which would find it difficult to avoid market volatility, the report said.
But even if the rise in inflation is temporary, “financial market participants could overreact,” the report said. This could lead to disruption in markets because there has been a long period of “aggressive risk taking.”
The collapse of the New York hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, which was forced to sell off billions of dollars in equities in March after it could not meet the demands of several banks, costing the banks several billions in losses, “could turn out to be the proverbial canary in the coal mine,” the report said. The fund’s failure raises a question about resilience of nonbank financial firms and how much hidden exposure they have.
When the pandemic ends, it will leave “issues that may well be more daunting and enduring,” the report said. One of those will be the need to normalize policy so that central banks and governments have “safety margins” to fight the next crises.
“An economy that operates with thin safety margins is vulnerable to both unexpected events and future recessions, which will inevitably come,” the report said.
Credit…Nathan Howard/Getty Images
To help people in the Pacific Northwest escape record-breaking temperatures, local officials have opened cooling centers — and relaxed some Covid-19 restrictions.
In Oregon, where temperatures are forecast to reach 113 degrees on Monday, roads have buckled from the extreme heat, and relatively few homes have air-conditioners, state health officials suspended capacity limits at swimming pools, movie theaters and shopping malls on Friday, and said that no one would be turned away from cooling centers because of crowding.
The decision follows a sustained decline in new reported coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, and Gov. Kate Brown’s announcement that Oregon would fully open no later than June 30. Nearly 70 percent of adult residents in the state have received at least one vaccine dose, Governor Brown’s benchmark for lifting the state’s remaining restrictions.
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington has suspended capacity restrictions at publicly owned or operated cooling centers and those run by nonprofit organizations in his state, though not for “private, for-profit businesses that offer air-conditioned spaces to the general public,” according to a memo released on Friday.
More than 70 percent of adults in Washington have received at least one vaccine dose, according to a vaccine tracker maintained by The New York Times. Governor Inslee has said that all restrictions in his state will be lifted no later than June 30 as well.
Local officials in the Northwest have tried to balance pandemic safety with the need to provide places for the public to cool off indoors. In Multnomah County, Ore., which includes Portland, people have been asked to wear face masks and maintain social distance at official cooling centers, including several public libraries with extended hours, movie theaters and the Oregon Convention Center, according to Dr. Jennifer Vines, the county health officer.
People who come in are not being asked about vaccination status, she said, but officials are offering vaccine shots at the convention center for anyone who needs them.
Dr. Vines said that though the coronavirus precautions were important, they were secondary to ensuring that residents can get relief from the record-breaking temperatures.
“Cooling people down is the more immediate life safety issue,” she said.
This is not the first time officials in Oregon have had to weigh competing health crises during the pandemic. Last September, Portland had the worst air quality of any major city in the world because of wildfire smoke, prompting a rapid shift in public health protocols to address that more immediate threat.
“We had been in full-on Covid response, and we suddenly had to do a complete 180 and say, ‘If you have to evacuate, find friends and family — just get inside and close your windows,’” Dr. Vines said on Monday.
“It’s a form of triage,” she added. “Working in our favor right now is that we do have a number of people vaccinated. So that makes me feel a little bit better about putting Covid in the back seat, at least for these few days.”
Credit…Karen E. Segrave for The New York Times
The cure for high prices is high prices.
That’s an old line used in commodity markets, and it helps explain why the great inflation scare of 2021 has eased some in recent weeks. When the price of something soars because demand outstrips supply, it has a way of self-correcting. Buyers, scared off by high prices, find other options, and sellers crank up production to take advantage of a profit opportunity.
It is an idea simple enough to be taught in the first few weeks of any introductory economics class, but one with powerful implications for the American economy as it aims for a postpandemic reboot.
Several of the key products whose prices soared in the spring have grown less expensive, as producers have increased output and buyers have held tight. This is particularly evident with lumber; as of Friday, its price was down 47 percent from its early-May peak (though still well above historical norms). Sawmills responded to soaring prices by pushing the limits of their capacity.
The prices of corn, copper and a variety of other economically important commodities are also down by double-digit percentages since early May. This supports the notion that the inflation the world has been experiencing is transitory — set to ease in the months ahead as the laws of supply and demand take hold.
Markets have plenty of flaws and imperfections, but when it comes to allocating scarce goods and sending signals to sellers to make more and buyers to buy less, they work quite well.
But just because markets work doesn’t mean they will work instantly. The complexity of the way many of the goods still in short supply are produced, transported and sold means that people in those markets are reluctant to predict the kind of snapback evident in lumber prices.
Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
Even as life returns to many New York City neighborhoods, its big commercial districts are awash with empty office space. Most workers haven’t yet returned — and it’s unclear if they all will.
That uncertainty is terrifying the city’s biggest office landlords, and many of them are going to great lengths to retain and attract tenants.
Lower rents or free months in multiyear leases are now de rigueur. But landlords are also trying to entice new and returning tenants with sweeping redesigns and new technology that can quickly refashion office space based on needs.
They are dangling upscale new clubs and food halls available largely for tenants. In one building on West 26th Street near the Hudson River, the owners are showing off a 600-square-foot speakeasy tucked away in a corner of the ground floor.
Almost one-fifth of the total market for office space in Manhattan is available for rent — a record high, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm. The amount includes roughly 79 million square feet of both unrented space and offices that tenants are trying to sublet.
Office landlords largely weathered the pandemic because tenants could not break their leases and had to keep paying rent. But one-third of leases at large Manhattan buildings are set to expire over the next three years, according to CBRE.
And as those deals come up for renegotiation, some large companies — which grew comfortable with letting employees work from home during the pandemic — are indicating that they will need significantly less space.
Credit…via Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs returned to Fifth Avenue Monday with the city’s first full-fledged fashion show in front of an air-kissing, non-socially distanced audience since the pandemic began — and his first show since February 2020. It was held in the echoing marble entranceway of the Public Library just atop Bryant Park, erstwhile home of New York Fashion Week, the stairs outside speckled once more with street-style photographers.
Unlike other designers, Mr. Jacobs has eschewed the digital sphere as a way to show his work during the last two seasons and 16 months of relative isolation; he hasn’t played around with ersatz music videos or lonely livestreams, but rather bided his time with his personal Instagram, reconsidered his business, regrouped.
This time around there wasn’t any special set. No flashing lights or pyrotechnics. Just clothes, animated by real people, moving through the world for about nine minutes and 32 seconds.
Which is not to say they were just any old clothes. They were transition clothes: not between seasons (nominally, this was fall/winter), but between states of mind, and being. Between the cocoons and retreats of the last 16 months — all those comfort clothes for self-soothing we kept nattering on about — and the growing liberation of the present. Metaphor clothes! A story of re-emergence, told in crazy, couture-scaled skiwear.
Credit…Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures, via Associated Press
Is the box office back?
Hollywood hopes so as Universal Pictures reports that the ninth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, “F9: The Fast Saga,” is expected to earn $68 million on 4,179 screens — the largest theater count for a single film since the pandemic closed the movie theater business in March 2020.
Internationally, “F9” has already earned over $300 million with a majority of the ticket sales coming from China, where it recently crossed the $200 million mark.
The numbers are vindication for Universal, which decided early in the pandemic to postpone its potential blockbuster by an entire year — a delay that some considered excessive at the time.
“F9” isn’t the first movie to perform well since movie theaters began reopening their doors. Paramount’s gamble to delay the release of “A Quiet Place 2” also paid off.
While the studio sold off some of its other properties including “Coming 2 America,” and the forthcoming “The Tomorrow War” to streamers itching to get their hands on additional content, it held on to “A Quiet Place 2,” the horror sequel, until Memorial Day weekend and has accrued $135 million in the United States and over $200 million worldwide.