Hi everybody.
Ian Bremmer here.
Happy Monday,
we are in August,
summer,
should be taking it
a little easier.
Coronavirus
not taking the stress levels off
but hopefully giving people the excuse,
if you're not traveling so much,
be close with your families, your loved ones and all that.
Look, this is not a philosophical conversation,
this is a talk about what's happening in the world,
a little Quick Take for you.
First of all, you know, I'm getting a little
bit more optimistic about the news in the
United States right now.
Yes, honestly, I am.
In part because the caseload is flattening
across the country and it's reducing in some
of the core states that have seen the greatest
explosion in this continuation of the first wave.
Yes, the deaths are going up and they should
continue to for a couple of weeks because
it is a lagging indicator in the United States.
But the fact that deaths are going up does
not say anything about what's coming in the
next few weeks.
That tells you what's happened
in the last couple of weeks.
What is likely coming is that even in
the red states where governors were most opposing
wearing masks in a mandatory way and
shutting down the economy, they are seeing that they
have explosive case transmission and they're
changing their behavior.
And mask wearing and social distancing in
the United States is less about whether you're
Republican or Democrat, it's more about
is the disease near you and do you
feel threatened by it?
And as we see it spreading into rural areas
and into red states, we're also seeing mask wearing
and social distancing going up in those places.
It's not true everywhere and even some governments
that are particularly retrograde, Alabama
looks really bad, for example, in that regard.
But generally, across the country,
you're seeing a response to all of those measures.
You're also seeing that improved treatment,
the fact that high-flow oxygen actually works
better than ventilators in some cases,
the fact that plasma treatment is becoming more
used and more and more widely understood.
I mean, all of these things, plus increased
testing numbers that the president keeps talking about,
is making it easier for the United States to
respond effectively to this outbreak.
And that means even with much larger caseload
that we know about, you're not getting as
many hospitalizations, they aren't lasting
as long, not as many people are dying.
All of that implies to me that where we are
going to be in two months’ time
doesn't feel as bad as where we are right now.
Even though the total numbers of deaths, of course,
are going up and the best estimates
I've seen so far, about 230,000 by Election Day.
There are more explosive cases that are happening
in Japan, in France, in Spain,
in the United Kingdom, and in Australia,
but let's keep in mind that that is from a much,
much lower base and the government response,
also learning, is becoming quicker and more effective.
And the popular response, better educated
around the stuff, also effective.
So, the impact that's going to have should be
smaller than what we saw in the first wave.
So, I mean, even without working vaccines,
the learning that's going on around this disease,
both the learning in terms of science
and also learning in terms of governments and people
should actually make us get better at handling it.
And that makes me more optimistic.
When we were talking in March and April
and the explosions we saw first in Italy and
the massive mistakes made around hospitals there,
which got overwhelmed.
In the United States, in the New York City
metro area, the massive mistakes that were
made around assisted living facilities
and bringing people that had cases
there and transmission exploded.
We're not doing that anymore.
So, we're learning in a lot of different ways.
The doctors are learning.
Governments are learning at the national and local level,
and the people are learning.
As all of that happens, we're going to get
better very quickly responding to this virus.
And so even though you're going to see lots
and lots of people still get sick,
you're not going to see as many serious hospitalizations
and not many will die.
The one thing that bothered me the most
since we last chatted, are these studies that show
that over 50% of people that have
gotten the disease, even if they were asymptomatic,
have some lasting heart damage because the heart
is working a lot harder to respond to the
body's needs when the virus comes.
It's only one study but the numbers are significant,
it's well over a thousand people in it, and
it was well reputed, the scientists involved.
So, the longer term implications of all of
the people that are getting this virus, many
of whom don't know it, in terms of whether
or not our life expectancies will be of the
quality and the length that we want, that
actually does really sort of bum me out.
And I'm hoping that we learn a lot more about
that in the near future.
So, you know, I mean, you think about the
fact that, you know, we go into our cars and
we've got thousands of sensors and we know
exactly when we need brake fluid,
we know exactly when we need gas,
we know exactly, you know, what kind of maintenance
we need,
real time, and we wouldn't buy a car otherwise.
And you look at our bodies and we have nowhere
near that amount of tracking and tracing.
And frankly, it's not even because the technology
isn't there, it's just because we haven't
felt comfortable with it and we also don't
really want companies or governments to have
access to that data.
But in this environment where suddenly you
are bringing this new disease into a meaningful
piece of the global population, and unchecked,
it hits everyone, right?
You look at India, Mumbai, and
some 50% of people tested in the biggest slum, over a
million people, very dense population,
already have had the disease.
Over half.
So, herd immunity actually of some form
is proven to come there.
I mean, the numbers are just, within a year,
the numbers are going to be astonishing to think about.
And, you know, pretty much everyone is going to
have people close to them that are exposed to it.
We are going to want to know, long-term
what that means for our health,
long-term what that means for our ability to live the lives
that we had been, you know, personally, emotionally
and financially planning for?
So, that is a worry.
Politically, let’s leave aside the elections for now.
I talked about that last week.
Heading in the same direction.
US-China, the most recent things.
First, the TikTok ban, so many people in the media
saying this is because Trump is angry
at the kids who embarrassed him in Tulsa,
he's angry at this comedian that makes all
of these really funny TikToks of him speaking.
No.
I mean, I'm sure he is angry about it, but
this has nothing to do with that.
It's almost certain that Microsoft or another company
will end up picking up TikTok and
all those people can still make fun of Trump
if they want to on whatever that new app is.
No, this is going after China.
And let's keep in mind that this is a China
where if you want to use Amazon,
you want to use Facebook,
you want to use Google, tough.
You're stuck.
You can't do it.
You know why?
Because they have their own and they won't let
the American companies in.
And China is the largest data market in the world.
So, if they refuse to allow the biggest
American firms, the biggest in the world,
to participate there,
even if the Chinese weren't stealing data
for their governmental purposes, even
if they had rule of law on intellectual property,
why would you let them operate those apps
in your market?
You would want to have an agreement where
you have reciprocity, where if they want to
operate the US then you get to operate in China.
Until that happens, I'm not very sympathetic
to the people saying the US shouldn't be doing anything.
And by the way, most American allies
are on board with the US on that front.
Also, interesting to see, probably the most
significant sanctions so far by the US against
China, it's against the Xinjiang Production
and Construction Corps.
It is the most important central government
sort of corporate entity in Xinjiang,
which is the north-west interior part of China,
where the Uighurs, the ethnic minority Muslim,
have had over a million forced into camps,
there has been forced sterilizations,
forced cultural integration.
It is a horrible, horrible story.
And the US is significantly upping the impact
in terms of sanctions.
It's not clear because there aren't a lot
of companies that do direct business in the West
with that Xinjiang Production Construction Corp,
but there are an enormous amount of firms
that do trade, that have inputs that originally
come from that company.
And that produces much of China's cotton,
for example, lots of other things as well.
So, a lot of people are going to be watching very
carefully to see what it means and just how
broadly those US sanctions are going to apply,
whether it's direct or indirect engagement
with that entity.
If it's indirect, then this is going to be a
very significant hit to a lot of Chinese companies
and Western companies that really matter,
they will have to change business practices
and the Chinese will respond and escalate.
So, that one is worth watching.
TikTok is done, someone else will buy it.
And that is your Quick Take.
Talk to you guys next week.
