Salon: Judge blocks Trump from giving coronavirus relief for Native American communities to corporations

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Monday from passing out coronavirus relief funds intended to help Native American communities to certain for-profit corporations owned by Natives. [...]

More than a dozen tribal governments sued the administration, arguing that the decision would dilute funds intended to help areas among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. [...]

The administration argued that ANCs could deliver services to communities like a tribal government, but Mehta said there was no evidence that ANCs were providing public services during the crisis. He also took issue with the government's claim that the Treasury Inspector General could simply take back the money if it was improperly distributed.

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The Guardian: Clean air in Europe during lockdown ‘leads to 11,000 fewer deaths’

Sharp falls in road traffic and industrial emissions have also resulted in 1.3m fewer days of work absence, 6,000 fewer children developing asthma, 1,900 avoided emergency room visits and 600 fewer preterm births, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

While the pandemic continues to take a terrible toll – more than 220,000 deaths worldwide since the start of the year – the authors of the report say the response has offered a glimpse of the cleaner, healthier environment that is possible if the world shifts away from polluting fossil fuel industries.

Compared with the same period last year, levels of nitrogen dioxide have fallen by 40% while tiny particulate matter – known as PM2.5 – is down 10%, which means that people without Covid-19 can breathe easier. These two forms of pollution, which weaken the heart and respiratory system, are together normally responsible for about 470,000 deaths in Europe each year. [...]

Health experts said the findings echoed their experience during the pandemic. “We have seen many fewer patients admitted with exacerbations of asthma and COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] over the last month and there is no doubt that a fall in air pollution is part of the reason,” said Dr LJ Smith, a consultant in respiratory medicine at King’s College hospital in London.

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UnHerd: Did anyone predict coronavirus?

I want to argue two things. One, predictions are amazingly hard. It doesn’t feel that way after the fact — we assume that whatever happened was always obviously going to happen, a phenomenon called hindsight bias. But actually it was not obvious in January or February that the outbreak in Wuhan would end up like this. Some people were saying it would; some that it wouldn’t. Suggesting in hindsight that the Government should have listened to the right people and not the wrong people isn’t much use.

But two, I want to argue that this shouldn’t let the Government off the hook — and, actually, it shouldn’t let the media off the hook, either. Just because you can’t foresee some outcomes doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act to avoid them. [...]

Sure, you might think it’s 90% sure that we’re not going to see a global pandemic. But that means you think there’s a 10% chance that there will be! We don’t play Russian roulette, even though there’s an 83% chance we’d be fine: a small-but-not-that-small chance of a terrible outcome is a serious thing that needs to be taken seriously. [...]

There’s an irony here. Dominic Cummings, the government adviser, is sometimes accused of pushing the Government towards the much-criticised “herd immunity” approach. He’s also linked to the Bay Area tech-rationalist people. If it turns out that the UK Government got it wrong, the problem may have been that Cummings didn’t listen hard enough to the nerds he admires so much.

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UnHerd: Can Emmanuel Macron reinvent himself?

If I had to sum up Macron’s argument in a few words, it would be these: there is no going back to the world before 2020. If we in the West want to preserve those things that we value most — democracy, openness, some level of prosperity, the environment — we must learn the lessons of Covid-19 and do things differently: more manufacturing close to home; more focus on people, less on finance; more national and European sovereignty; better, not less, multilateral or international cooperation. [...]

But all the same, Macron is extraordinary. Compare his willingness, and ability, to wrestle intellectually with the greatest crisis of our lifetimes with Donald Trump’s ignorance, narcissism and bluster; Boris Johnson’s evasive eloquence; and even Angela Merkel’s belief that Germany’s rigid, pre-Covid approach to Europe can be re-assembled Humpty-Dumpty-like without change. [...]

All the Macron achievements of the past three years — and there are many — look likely to be dwarfed or ruined by Covid-19. French unemployment had fallen sharply for the first time in a decade; there are suddenly nine million people on a temporary unemployment scheme (the most generous of its kind in the world with state funding of 80% of net salaries). How many of those jobs will survive the crisis?

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Pindex: Will 60% Get Coronavirus? w Stephen Fry.

Will coronavirus keep resurging until we reach herd immunity, with 60% of the population infected? Or can we hold it back until a vaccine is available?