Vaccination and Immunization

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Covid Vaccine and Fisheries Deals Close a ‘Roller Coaster’ W.T.O. Meeting

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Members of the global trade group were forced to scale back plans for more ambitious agreements, but they were ultimately able to reach several deals at a meeting in Geneva.WASHINGTON — Members of the World Trade Organization announced several agreements on Friday at the close of their first in-person ministerial conference in four years, pledging to rein in harmful government policies that have encouraged overfishing and relax some controls on intellectual property in an effort to make coronavirus vaccines more widely available.The agreements were hard fought, coming after several long nights of talks and extended periods when it appeared that the meeting would yield no major deals at all. Indeed, while the parties were able to reach a compromise on vaccine technology, the divide remained so deep that both sides criticized the outcome.“It was like a roller coaster, but in the end we got there,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, said at an early-morning news conference in Geneva after the group’s members approved the final package of agreements.The deals were an important success for an organization that has come under fire for being unwieldy, bureaucratic and mired in disagreement. But several of the government officials, business leaders and trade experts who descended on the trade body’s headquarters on the shore of Lake Geneva this week described the agreements as the bare minimum and said the trade organization, while still operational, was hardly thriving.Wendy Cutler, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former trade negotiator, wrote in an email that the deals, “when packaged together, are enough to claim success but by no means suggest that the W.T.O. has turned a corner.”Ministers ended up stripping out some of the most meaningful elements of a deal to combat harmful subsidies for fishers that have depleted global fish stocks, Ms. Cutler said, and the pandemic response was “too little, too late.”The outcomes “seem particularly meager in light of the grave challenges facing the global economy, ranging from sluggish growth to a serious food crisis to climate change,” she said.To address the growing food crisis around the world, which has been brought on by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the group’s members made a mutual declaration to encourage trade in food and try to avoid export bans that are exacerbating shortages.The trade organization also agreed to temporarily extend a ban on taxes or customs duties on electronic transmissions, including e-books, movies or research that might be sent digitally across borders. But the debate was difficult and protracted over an issue that many businesses and some government officials argued should be low-hanging fruit.“Ministers spent the entire week preventing the demise of the e-commerce moratorium, instead of looking ahead at how to strengthen the global economy,” said Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents major multinational businesses.One of the trade body’s biggest accomplishments was reaching an agreement to help protect global fishing stocks that has been under negotiation for the last two decades.Governments spend $22 billion a year on subsidies for their fishing fleets, often encouraging industrial fishing operations to catch far more fish than is sustainable, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. The agreement would create a global framework for sharing information and limiting subsidies for illegal and unregulated fishing operations, as well as for vessels that are depleting overfished stocks or operating on the unregulated high seas.In the organization’s over 25-year history, the deal was only the second agreement on adjusting trade rules to be signed by all of the body’s members. And it was the group’s first agreement centered on environmental and sustainability issues.Oceans advocates had mixed reactions.Isabel Jarrett, manager of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ project to reduce harmful fisheries subsidies, called the agreement “a turning point in addressing one of the key drivers of global overfishing.”“Curbing the subsidies that drive overfishing can help restore the health of fisheries and the communities that rely on them,” she said. “The W.T.O.’s new agreement is a step towards doing just that.”But others expressed disappointment. “Our oceans are the big loser today,” said Andrew Sharpless, the chief executive of Oceana, a nonprofit group focused on ocean conservation. “After 20 years of delay, the W.T.O. failed again to eliminate subsidized overfishing and in turn is allowing countries to pillage the world’s oceans.”As part of the agreement, negotiations will continue with the goal of making recommendations on additional provisions to be considered at next year’s ministerial conference.World Trade Organization members also agreed to loosen intellectual property rules to allow developing countries to manufacture patented Covid-19 vaccines under certain circumstances. Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said in a statement that the trade organization’s members “were able to bridge differences and achieve a concrete and meaningful outcome to get more safe and effective vaccines to those who need it most.”The issue of relaxing intellectual property rights for vaccines had become highly controversial. It pitted the pharmaceutical industry and developed countries that are home to their operations, particularly in Europe, against civil society organizations and delegations from India and South Africa.Stephen J. Ubl, the president and chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the agreement had “failed the global population.” Global vaccine supplies are currently plentiful, he said, and the agreement did little to address “real issues affecting public health,” such as supply chain bottlenecks or border tariffs on medicines.Lori Wallach, the director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, called the outcome “a dangerous public health fail” and “a vulgar display of multilateralism’s demise” in which a few rich countries and pharmaceutical companies blocked the will of more than 100 countries to improve access to medicines. The agreement did not loosen intellectual property rights for treatments or therapeutics, as civil society groups had wanted.Divisions between rich and poor countries and between big business and civil society groups were apparent in other negotiations, which were also overlaid with the geopolitical challenges of a global pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The World Trade Organization requires consensus from all of its 164 members to reach agreements, and India emerged as a significant obstacle in several of the negotiations, including over e-commerce duties and fishery subsidies.Mr. Colvin said the requirement of unanimous consent had put severe limits on the trade body’s ability to produce meaningful outcomes. “The system is set up to reward hostage-taking and bad faith,” he said.Catrin Einhorn More

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    How The Trucker Protests Are Snarling the Auto Industry

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    Blockades of U.S.-Canada border crossings could hurt the auto industry, factory workers and the economy, which are still recovering from pandemic disruptions.After two years of the pandemic, semiconductor shortages and supply chain chaos, it seemed as if nothing else could go wrong for the auto industry and the millions of people it employs. But then came thousands of truckers who, angry about vaccine mandates, have been blocking major border crossings between Canada and the United States.With Canadian officials baffled about what to do, the main routes that handle the steel, aluminum and other parts that keep car factories running on both sides of the border were essentially shut down Wednesday and Thursday.Ford Motor, General Motors, Honda and Toyota have curtailed production at several factories in Michigan and Ontario, threatening paychecks and offering a fresh reminder of the fragility of global supply chains and of the deep interdependence of the U.S. and Canadian economies, which exchange $140 million in vehicles and parts every day.No one knows how this is going to end. The protests are expected to swell in the coming days and could spread, including to the United States. Canada’s transport minister has called the bridge blockades illegal. Marco Mendicino, Canada’s minister of public safety, said on Thursday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the national force, was sending additional officers to the Canadian capital, Ottawa, and to Windsor, Ontario. The mayor of Windsor has threatened to remove the protesters. But those statements have seemed to have little impact. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan pleaded with Canadian officials to quickly reopen traffic.“They must take all necessary and appropriate steps to immediately and safely reopen traffic so we can continue growing our economy,” Ms. Whitmer said in a statement on Thursday.The chaos is already starting to take an economic toll. The pain is likely to be most acute for smaller auto parts suppliers, for independent truckers and for workers who get paid based on their production. Many of these groups, unlike large automakers like G.M., Ford and Toyota, lack the clout to raise prices of their goods and services. Companies and workers in Canada are more likely to suffer because they are more dependent on the United States.The longer crossings between the countries remain blocked, the more severe the damage, not only to the auto industry but also to the communities that depend on manufacturing salaries. Workers at smaller firms typically receive no compensation for lost hours, said Dino Chiodo, the director of auto at the giant Canadian union Unifor. Workers who have been sent home early because of parts shortages will spend less at stores and restaurants.“People say, ‘I have $200 less this week, what do I do?’” Mr. Chiodo said. “It affects the Canadian and U.S. economy as a whole.”Auto factories and suppliers in the United States generally keep at least two weeks of raw materials on hand, said Carla Bailo, the president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. If the bridges remain blocked for longer than that, she said, “then you’re looking at layoffs.”The blockades came after a demonstration in Ottawa that started nearly two weeks ago. The protests began over a mandate that truck drivers coming from the United States be vaccinated against the coronavirus and have grown to include various pandemic restrictions. Some have demanded that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resign. The truckers have been joined by various groups, including some displaying Nazi symbols and damaging public monuments. Police in Ottawa said on Thursday that the protesters and their supporters, including some in the United States, had almost overwhelmed the city’s 911 system with calls.The crossing that has the auto industry and government officials most concerned is the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Detroit. It carries roughly a quarter of the trade between the two countries, which has been relatively unrestricted for decades. While food and other products are also affected, about a third of the cargo that uses the bridge is related to the auto industry, Ms. Bailo said.The blockade has been felt as far south as Kentucky, where production has been disrupted at a Toyota factory, the company said on Thursday. The shutdown at the border also will prevent manufacturing at Toyota’s three Canadian plants for the rest of the week, a spokesman for the automaker, Scott Vazin, said.Demonstrators blocking access to the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. The bridge accounts for roughly a quarter of the trade between the United States and Canada.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressG.M. said it had canceled two shifts on Wednesday and Thursday at a factory in Lansing, Mich., that makes Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse sport utility vehicles. The company also sent workers from the first shift at a plant in Flint, Mich., home early. Ford said Thursday that plants in Windsor and Oakville, also in Ontario, were running at reduced capacity.Shortages of semiconductors and other components have not been all bad for giant automakers, creating scarcity that has driven up prices of cars in the last year. Ford and G.M. both reported healthy profits for 2021. And the economic damage will not be severe if the bridge and other crossings reopen soon, industry experts said.But the last two years have shown that, because supply chains are so complex, problems at obscure parts makers can have far-reaching and unpredictable impact. Last year, Ford had to shut down plants for weeks at a time in part because of a fire at a chip factory in Japan.“If it stretches on for weeks it could be catastrophic,” said Peter Nagle, an analyst who covers the car industry at IHS Markit, a research firm.Mr. Nagle said the bridge blockade was worse than the semiconductor shortage for carmakers. They “were already running pretty tight because of other supply chain shortages,” he said. “This is just bad news on top of bad news.”The auto industry operates relatively seamlessly across Canada, the United States and Mexico. Some parts can travel back and forth across borders multiple times as raw materials are processed and are turned into components and, eventually, vehicles.An engine block, for example, might be cast in Canada, sent to Michigan to be machined for pistons, then sent back to Canada for assembly into a finished motor. The blockades have stranded some truckers on the wrong side of the border, creating a chain reaction of missed deliveries.The slowdown in Canadian trade will disproportionately affect New York, Michigan and Ohio, said Arthur Wheaton, the director of labor studies at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. At the same time, he added, the protests were “certainly raising concerns for all U.S. manufacturers.”“There is already a shortage of truck drivers in North America, so protests keeping truckers off their routes exacerbates problems for an already fragile supply chain,” Mr. Wheaton said.Carmakers had hoped that shortages of computer chips and other components would ease this year, allowing them to concentrate on the long-term: the transition to electric vehicles.A larger fear for many elected officials and business executives is that the scene at the Ambassador Bridge could inspire other protests. The Department of Homeland Security warned in an internal memo that a convoy of protesting truckers was planning to travel from California to Washington, D.C., potentially disrupting the Super Bowl and President Biden’s State of the Union address on March 1.“While there are currently no indications of planned violence,” the memo, which was dated Tuesday, said, “if hundreds of trucks converge in a major metropolitan city, the potential exists to severely disrupt transportation, federal government operations, commercial facilities and emergency services through gridlock and potential counter protests.”Mr. Chiodo, the Canadian union leader, said that “the people who are demonstrating are doing it for the wrong reasons. They want to get back to the way things were before the pandemic, and in reality they are shutting things down.”The scene in Ottawa remained a raucous party Thursday, with hundreds of people on the street, many wearing Canadian flags like capes. The song “Life Is a Highway,” by the Canadian musician Tom Cochrane, pumped from loudspeakers set up on the back of an empty trailer that had been converted into a stage.But there was a thinning out of protesters — with some empty spaces where trucks had been the day before.Johnny Neufeld, 39, a long-haul trucker from Windsor, Ontario, said the vaccine mandate would spell the end of his job transporting molds into the United States since he had chosen not to be inoculated out of fear the shots had been developed too quickly. He got his first ticket from the police Thursday morning, a fine of 130 Canadian dollars (about $100) for being in a no-stopping zone.“This is a souvenir,” he said.Dan Bilefsky More

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    G.M. Cancels Shifts at Michigan Plant Over Canada Protest Disruption

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    General Motors is the latest automaker to suspend production because of protests at a crucial Canadian border crossing that have disrupted supply chains already in turmoil because of the pandemic.G.M. said it had canceled two shifts on Wednesday and Thursday at a factory in Lansing, Mich., that makes sport utility vehicles. The plant depends on components that normally travel across a bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit that was closed by truck drivers and far-right groups angry about vaccine mandates and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Ford Motor and Toyota have also shut down some operations because factories could not get parts manufactured in Canada.The shutdown at the border will prevent manufacturing at Toyota’s three Canadian plants for the rest of this week, Scott Vazin, a spokesman for Toyota Motor North America, said Thursday.As long as the shutdowns are short lived, the impact on automaker sales and worker livelihoods should be limited. Companies are likely to make up for any lost production by running extra shifts or other measures.“A couple of days shouldn’t be that significant,” Mr. Vazin said. “We’re certainly hoping the blockade ends.”Said Deep, a spokesman at Ford, said Thursday morning that the company was running its plants in Oakville and Windsor, both in Ontario, at reduced capacity.“This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, autoworkers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border that are already two years into parts shortages resulting from the global semiconductor issue, Covid and more,” Mr. Deep said. “We hope this situation is resolved quickly because it could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.”John Bordignon, a spokesman for Honda Canada, said Thursday morning that the company’s plant in Alliston, Ontario, had temporarily suspended one production line Wednesday evening but was back online on Thursday.The company will continue to monitor the flow of goods between Canada and the United States, and further disruptions were “certainly possible,” he said.Protesters challenging Canada’s vaccine requirements and other pandemic restrictions began cutting off traffic Monday on the Ambassador Bridge, the vital span that connects Detroit and Windsor.The bridge accounts for roughly a quarter of the trade between the United States and Canada. Trucks carry an estimated $300 million worth of goods across the bridge each day, about a third of which are related to the automobile industry.Companies have begun rerouting shipments to alternative crossing routes, like the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron, Mich., and Sarnia, Ontario. But a new blockade on Wednesday on a route to that bridge, as well as a surge of diverted cars and trucks, slowed traffic there.The closings are likely to lead to losses for other industries, as well. On Wednesday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the Biden administration was tracking potential disruptions to agricultural exports to Canada.Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said in a statement on Thursday that the blockade was putting the state’s economy at risk.“The blockade is having a significant impact on Michigan’s working families who are just trying to do their jobs,” she said. “Our communities and automotive, manufacturing, and agriculture businesses are feeling the effects.”Carmakers worldwide have struggled with shortages of semiconductors and other parts that severely curtailed production and sales. They had hoped that the flow of components and materials would start to return to normal this year.Ford said last Friday that it would be forced to shut down some production lines and reduce work hours at plants across North America this week because of chip shortages.Most carmakers operate on a “just-in-time” system that dispatches parts and materials to their factories as they are needed. The system has helped manufacturers reduce costs.But it has also left companies vulnerable as the pandemic closed foreign ports and factories and overloaded shipping companies, warehouses and truckers.David C. Adams, the president at Global Automakers of Canada, which represents Toyota and Honda, said auto facilities typically had about two days of inventory on hand. “Then things start to become problematic in terms of having enough parts to keep the lines running.” More

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    Why the Retail Industry Is Fighting Vaccine Mandates

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    The Biden administration has called on major companies to help fight the pandemic. Big chains want to get past the holiday staffing crunch first.The holiday shopping season has arrived, and retailers are ringing it in by doing everything from cutting prices to stocking showrooms to lure back customers who stayed at home last year. What the biggest of them are not doing is the one thing the White House and many public health experts have asked them to: mandate that their workers be vaccinated.As other industries with workers in public-facing roles, like airlines and hospitals, have moved toward requiring vaccines, retailers have dug in their heels, citing concerns about a labor shortage. And a portion of one of the country’s largest work forces will remain unvaccinated, just as shoppers are expected to flock to stores.At the heart of the retailers’ resistance is a worry about having enough people to work. In a tight labor market, retailers have been offering perks like higher wages and better hours to prospective employees in hopes of having enough people to staff their stores and distribution centers. The National Retail Federation, the industry’s largest trade group, has estimated that retailers will hire up to 665,000 seasonal workers this year.Walmart, the nation’s biggest private employer, declined to comment on its plans for vaccinations or testing.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMacy’s, for example, said it planned to hire 76,000 full- and part-time employees this season. The retailer has offered referral bonuses of up to $500 for each friend or relative whom employees recruit to join it. Macy’s asked corporate staff this fall to be vaccinated or test negative for Covid-19 to enter its offices. But store workers are a different story.“We have a lot of stores that have a lot of openings, and any ruling that we have to mandate those colleagues be vaccinated prior to Christmas is just going to exacerbate our labor shortage going into a really critical period for us,” Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said in an interview.The industry showed how strongly it feels about the issue this month when the Biden administration directed companies with 100 or more workers to mandate vaccines or weekly tests by Jan. 4. Five days after that announcement, the National Retail Federation sued to stop the effort.“We all agree with the premise that vaccines are good and vaccines save lives,” Stephanie Martz, the chief administrative officer of the N.R.F., said in an interview Monday.“But by the same token, you can’t just say, ‘OK, make it so.’”The order is now held up in litigation, challenged by a number of lawsuits from a broad coalition of opponents, and could make its way to the Supreme Court. Court filings by the administration warn that blocking the rule would “likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day.”Mr. Gennette, who sits on the board of the federation, said Macy’s would “love to see” the order put in place in the first quarter, which typically begins in February for the industry. That echoes the federation, which has said it wants to move the deadline back several months.“I support it — I would just love to have it on a timetable that works for us,” Mr. Gennette said. “We need more time.”Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said he believed in the importance of employee vaccinations but didn’t want them required until after the holidays.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMany health experts say employee mandates are the only way to help the country emerge from the pandemic, as rampant misinformation and politicization of the coronavirus have helped suppress vaccination rates. The vaccination rate for those 12 and older in the United States is about 69 percent, with rates in some pockets of the country as low as 40 percent. Average daily case reports have increased more than 20 percent over the past two weeks.“It’s a pretty big ask, there’s no one denying that,” Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, said of requiring vaccinations for retail employees. “But we’ve also tried a lot of other things to help people get vaccinated — and I think a mandate right now is what we need to get over that barrier.”Walmart, the nation’s biggest private employer, declined to comment on the federation’s lawsuit or its plans for vaccinations or testing. A spokeswoman for Target said the company had “started taking the necessary steps to meet the requirements of the new Covid-19 rules for large companies as soon as the details were announced.”Spokespeople for several retailers on the federation’s board, including Kohl’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Saks, declined to comment for this article.Concern about challenges in hiring workers is a major cause of retailers’ hesitancy.Jim Wilson/The New York Times“I think employers are embarrassed and ashamed by what they are objecting to and therefore use the N.R.F. as a cover,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.He added: “If you had a choice of going to a workplace, or as a customer to go to a store, that said, ‘All our employees are vaccinated or tested,’ or another store that says, ‘We have no idea who’s vaccinated or tested,’ which would you choose? And that’s why, let’s say, Acme Department Store doesn’t want to advertise that it’s promoting bad public policy.”Many employers in industries, like retail, that have mandated vaccines at corporate offices have not required them for frontline workers, sharing concerns about challenges in hiring. But those workers, including about four million at stores, are among the most vulnerable. They interact frequently with the public and are less likely to be vaccinated themselves. Mandates at Tyson, United Airlines and several health care companies indicate that when faced with the prospect of losing their job, employees most frequently choose inoculation.“We know vaccine requirements work,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the White House. “The federal government, the country’s largest employer, has successfully implemented its requirement in a way that has boosted vaccinations and avoids any disruptions to operations.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Still, companies mandating vaccines have faced protests or lawsuits. In some states litigation has been passed to impede it. Disney, for instance, paused a mandate for employees at Disney World in Florida after it became illegal for employers in the state to require workers to get the shot.The panic and precautions tied to Covid-19 have played out at retail stores throughout the pandemic and ensnared their workers.First, there was the divide between essential and nonessential businesses, which prompted chains like Guitar Center and Dillard’s to argue that they needed to stay open — and keep their employees coming in — despite the worsening public health crisis. Workers have been at the forefront of disputes around mask mandates and then mask enforcement. Retail chains like REI have been criticized for failing to inform employees about Covid cases in stores. Grocery store workers were not given priority access to vaccines in many states.Target’s chief executive attributed strong staffing numbers to perks and safety measures.Amr Alfiky/The New York Times“We’ve seen, throughout the pandemic, self-serving messages from employers who are putting profitability above their own employees’ health and safety,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “They have a misguided idea that it’s better for profits to take certain actions.”Business has boomed for some of the largest retailers, like Target and Walmart, throughout the pandemic. And while they are still facing rising prices and supply chain strain, executives have indicated recently that pressure on staffing has waned.“We feel really good about our staffing going into the holiday season,” Brian Cornell, Target’s chief executive, told CNBC last week. He added that the company’s retention numbers were “some of the strongest in our history,” which he attributed to perks and safety measures.Retailers are betting that consumers will be comfortable shopping in stores, where foot traffic is already higher than in 2020, regardless of the industry’s efforts to fight the new vaccination and testing requirements. And for those who are concerned about the lack of vaccinations, the companies have bolstered their e-commerce operations and curbside pickup offerings in the past year, though in-store shopping often leads to more purchases and fewer returns.When asked what Macy’s would tell concerned customers about shopping in stores, Mr. Gennette said: “What I would say is we encourage every one of our colleagues to be vaccinated and every colleague wears a mask in our stores and warehouses to protect themselves and others.”Last week, a number of health groups and experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, put out a statement imploring companies to move forward with the Labor Department rules.“The hope was to provide some perspective for business leaders to remind them this is not a political issue,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who was one of the signatories. Dr. Jha said it was important for companies in all industries to follow the rule, noting that retailers play a particular role, given the nature of their employee base. He said those measures should be put in place during the holiday season — not after — especially as that is when case numbers are expected to rise.“Do they really want to be superspreader places during the holiday season and be responsible for their employees getting sick and for their employees spreading it to customers?” Dr. Jha said. More

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    As Virus Cases Rise in Europe, an Economic Toll Returns

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    A series of restrictions, including a lockdown in Austria, is expected to put a brake on economic growth.Europe’s already fragile economic recovery is at risk of being undermined by a fourth wave of coronavirus infections now dousing the continent, as governments impose increasingly stringent health restrictions that could reduce foot traffic in shopping centers, discourage travel and thin crowds in restaurants, bars and ski resorts.Austria has imposed the strictest measures, mandating vaccinations and imposing a nationwide lockdown that began on Monday. But economic activity will also be dampened by other safety measures — from vaccine passports in France and Switzerland to a requirement to work from home four days a week in Belgium.“We are expecting a bumpy winter season,” said Stefan Kooths, a research director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany. “The pandemic now seems to be affecting the economy more negatively than we originally thought.”The Christmas market in Frankfurt, Germany on Monday. Some German states have imposed partial lockdowns.Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersThe tough lockdowns that swept Europe during the early months of the pandemic last year ended up shrinking economic output by nearly 15 percent. Buoyed by a raft of government support to businesses and the unemployed, most of those countries managed to scramble back and recoup their losses after vaccines were introduced, infection rates tumbled and restrictions eased.In September, economists optimistically declared that Europe had reached a turning point. In recent weeks, the main threats to the economy seemed to stem from a post-lockdown exuberance that was causing supply-chain bottlenecks, energy-price increases and inflation worries. And widespread vaccinations were expected to defang the pandemic’s bite so that people could continue to freely gather to shop, dine out and travel.What was not expected was a series of tough government restrictions. A highly contagious strain — aided by some resistance to vaccines and flagging support for other anti-infection measures like masks — has enabled the coronavirus to make a comeback in some regions.“The lower vaccination rates are, the gloomier the economic outlook is for this winter term,” Mr. Kooths said.Roughly two-thirds of Europe’s population has been vaccinated, but rates vary widely from country to country. Only a quarter of the population in Bulgaria has received a shot, for example, compared with 81 percent in Portugal, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.A vaccination line in Lisbon. Covid-19 inoculation rates vary widely among European Union countries; Portugal is among the leaders.Patricia De Melo Moreira/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBefore they were ordered shut, stores in Austria were already suffering a 25 percent loss in revenue for November compared with the same period in 2019, the country’s retail trade association said on Monday. Although the last shopping Saturday before the lockdown — stores in Austria are closed on Sunday — was stronger than that day two years ago, the group said, it would not be enough to make up for the losses expected in the coming weeks.Hotels were not faring much better in the week before the start of the lockdown, with one of every two bookings canceled, Austria’s hotel association, Ö.H.V., said.Still, the overall outlook is not nearly as dire as it was last year. Although several analysts have shaved their forecasts for October, November and December, growth is still expected to be positive, with the yearly increase hovering around the 5 percent mark. Jobless rates have dropped and, in some areas, businesses are complaining of labor shortages.Austria’s response, to impose a three-week lockdown — which shuts all stores except those providing basic necessities, allows restaurants to serve only carryout and requires people to stay home except for essential activities — is not necessarily a bellwether of what other governments across Europe will do. Leaders in France and Britain signaled last week that they were not planning new shutdowns.“We’re not at that point,” Sajid Javid, the British health secretary, said on Sunday. While there can’t be complacency, he added that he hoped people could “look forward to Christmas together.”Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Economics, said that while it was clear that restrictions and lockdowns had a significant and immediate impact on the economy, limited and intermittent closings — like those that already exist in some countries — were less likely to put a huge dent in overall growth.Rising infection rates will also push concerns over inflation — at least in the near future — “a little bit into the background,” he said.Much more difficult to assess, though, are the consequences of widespread restrictions on the unvaccinated or vaccine mandates.For individual businesses and regions, however, even the current limits could prove devastating.Restaurants in Austria will allow only carryout service.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesThe weeks leading up to Christmas Day are among the most important shopping days in Austria and Germany, where people gather at outdoor markets to eat, drink and buy gifts. The region’s traditional holiday markets, which normally open from late November until Dec. 24, are also an important tourist draw, and generate wider revenue through hotel bookings and other cultural events.Last year, many markets were completely shut down, so sellers and buyers were looking forward to this year.In Vienna, the market on Maria Theresien Platz opened on Wednesday, its wooden stalls decorated with evergreen boughs and fairy lights. But the vendors were forced to shut down after only four days.Maria Kissova stood amid piles of tablecloths, pillow covers and lace ornaments she had brought in from neighboring Slovakia, where she employs several women to sew the crafts. This year was her first time coming to Vienna, a trip that required months of planning and paperwork. With the lockdown, she faced the prospect of only several days’ worth of shopping, if the market is allowed to reopen as planned in mid-December.“It was a shock” when the lockdown was announced, she said, adding that it was too early to predict the scale of the losses she could incur. “We just have to accept it.”For Daniel Zieman, who ran a gift stand across the square between Vienna’s Natural History and Art History Museums, the story was the same. But he worried about the staff at the restaurant serving typical Austrian fare that he runs on the edge of town, many of whom count on the tips coming in from waiting tables in the normally busy season. Lost tips won’t be included in the government subsidies that will help keep people afloat.“Many of our staff have children, and you count on a certain percent from these tips every month,” he said. “That won’t be there.”The holiday season is when many restaurants do their biggest business, with companies holding end-of-year events, he said. “That is really good business, with 30 to 40 people who eat and drink and drink again and eat again. It’s a real shame,” he said.The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also imposed new restrictions. In Germany, some states have introduced partial lockdowns, and starting Wednesday, the unvaccinated will be required to show a negative Covid test before going to work.By the end of this winter, pretty much everyone in Germany “will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” Jens Spahn, the health minister, said on Monday.A nationwide closure in Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is unlikely at the moment, but Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, warned that one there would drag down all of Europe. “If Germany locks down, Europe is going to go back into recession,” he said.In France, Europe’s second-largest economy, President Emmanuel Macron is loath to reverse economic gains when a major election is scheduled in April. Despite warnings by health experts that another wave of coronavirus is hitting France “with lightning speed,” Mr. Macron said last week that he wouldn’t close parts of the economy again or follow Austria.Nearly 70 percent of the French population has been double vaccinated, and the country imposed a health pass earlier this year requiring people to show proof of vaccination to travel on trains and planes and enter restaurants, cinemas and large shopping centers.The government will now require a booster dose for people 65 or older for the pass to remain valid, and France’s Health Defense Council will meet on Wednesday with Mr. Macron to discuss other options to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The government, a spokesman said this week, is bringing “the weight of restrictions to bear on nonvaccinated people rather than vaccinated people.”Liz Alderman More

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    Retailers Scramble to Attract Workers Ahead of the Holidays

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    Signing bonuses, higher wages, even college tuition. Companies are using perks to entice new employees in an industry that has been battered by the pandemic.Macy’s is offering referral bonuses of up to $500 for each friend or family member that employees recruit to join the company. Walmart is paying as much as $17 an hour to start and has begun offering free college tuition to its workers. And some Amazon warehouse jobs now command signing bonuses of up to $3,000.Retailers, expecting the holiday shopping season to be bustling once again this year after being upended by the coronavirus in 2020, are scrambling to find enough workers to staff their stores and distribution centers in a tight labor market. It is not proving easy to entice applicants to an industry that has been battered, more than most, by the pandemic’s many challenges, from fights over mask wearing to high rates of infection among employees. Willing retail workers are likely to earn larger paychecks and work fewer hours, while consumers may be greeted by less inventory and understaffed stores.“Folks looking to work in retail have typically had very little choice — it’s largely been driven by geography and availability of hours,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s business school. “Now they can pick and choose who’s got the highest, best benefits, bonuses and hourly rates. And as we’ve seen, the escalation has been striking.”Or as Jeff Gennette, the chief executive of Macy’s, which plans to hire 76,000 full- and part-time employees this season, put it in a recent interview: “Everyone’s experiencing this — there’s a war for talent at the front lines. My sense is we all have to raise our game.”While some of the most generous perks, like tuition reimbursement, are being offered mainly to long-term workers, even seasonal workers will see higher pay than usual. It’s especially critical for retailers to hire temporary help this year because existing employees are already strained from nearly two years of pandemic conditions. The National Retail Federation, an industry group, is anticipating record holiday sales and has forecast that retailers will hire 500,000 to 665,000 seasonal workers, significantly more than the 486,000 in 2020.It’s especially critical for retailers to hire temporary help this year to assist existing employees already strained from nearly two years of pandemic conditions.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“The biggest risk to retailers and distributors is that they are working their current work force too much,” said Scott Mushkin, who founded the financial consultant R5 Capital, based in New Canaan, Conn. “Overtime can only go so far. The work force is tired out.”Mr. Mushkin experienced firsthand just how eager retailers are for workers during a visit last month to a Home Depot in Naperville, Ill.“I was looking at a sign listing open positions at the store when I was basically accosted by a manager asking if I was interested in applying,” Mr. Mushkin said.Mr. Mushkin said he was struck not only by the manager’s desperation but also by the number of positions available. “Basically every job in that store is open,” he said. “So who is doing those jobs now? Who is picking up the slack?”Those pressures may explain why large retailers like Walmart are looking to hire 150,000 additional workers to supplement its current staff this season. For several years leading up to the pandemic, Walmart offered existing workers extra hours at the holidays but did not start a large hiring blitz. (Existing employees can still sign up for additional hours.) It recently raised its minimum wage to $12 an hour, and in some stores it is offering new workers $17 an hour.A recruiter for Amazon at a job fair in Virginia last month. It is looking for an additional 150,000 people this holiday season.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAmazon is also looking for an additional 150,000 people this holiday season, which follows a push to expand its permanent work force by 125,000. With giant retailers gobbling up many of the job candidates, enticing new employees is that much harder for others.Many retailers, like Saks Off 5th, reiterated commitments to remain closed on Thanksgiving this year, a welcome shift for workers after a yearslong trend of shopping invading the holiday. Demanding that employees work in stores that day would probably be a particularly tough sell this year.Nordstrom, which is aiming to hire 28,600 seasonal and regular employees, said it had increased bonus and incentive pay to as much as $650 for hourly and overnight store workers, from as much as $400 last year.Saks Off 5th said in October that it was raising its minimum base wage for hourly store workers to $15 per hour — more than double the federal minimum wage — and that it would not offer extended holiday shopping hours this year so that staff could have more flexibility.Best Buy is allowing job applicants to submit videos rather than coming in physically for a first round of interviews, saying in a recent statement that the videos “can be recorded and reviewed without the need to go back and forth on scheduling.”The scramble by retailers comes as the American economy is gaining strength, adding 531,000 jobs in October, a sharp rebound from the previous month. But even as unemployment dropped to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent, the labor participation rate — which measures the share of the working-age population employed or looking for a job — was flat last month, at 61.6 percent. That signals that the pool of available workers remains tight.“We’re coming out of a crisis we have no experience in dealing with, in which millions of people were furloughed or laid off or removed from the work force, and to think they’ll all show up on certain date to come back to work is kind of silly,” Mr. Cohen said. “Some people are still fearful about coming back to work, especially in a job in which they would be exposed to large numbers of the public.”While fear of the Delta variant may be keeping some workers away, the retail industry had been loath to impose vaccine mandates for fear that store workers might leave and that it might become even harder to find seasonal employees. A new vaccinate-or-test requirement for companies with 100 or more employees announced by the Biden administration on Thursday essentially forced their hands, though it is not scheduled to take effect until Jan. 4 and was temporarily blocked on Saturday by a federal appeals court in Louisiana. (The mandate does instruct employers to require unvaccinated workers to wear masks by Dec. 5.)The National Retail Federation was critical of the mandate, saying it imposes “burdensome new requirements on retailers during the crucial holiday shopping season.”L.L. Bean’s chief executive said that it has been “incredibly challenging” to hire hourly employees, especially for its 54 stores.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesStephen Smith, the chief executive of L.L. Bean, the outdoor retailer based in Maine, said it has been “incredibly challenging” to hire hourly employees, especially for its more than 50 stores. The chain is not offering bonuses, but it has given priority to new forms of flexibility to attract workers. For example, jobs at its domestic call center are now fully remote.In stores, Mr. Smith said, “we have changed our shift structure so you can do two- or four-hour shifts” in an attempt to “make it a lot easier if you’re juggling family responsibilities.”The company has also sought to emphasize its unique benefits, including several paid days off for employees to pursue outdoor experiences.The challenge of finding workers has put a spotlight on how difficult many retail jobs are and on the short shrift given to many store workers during the worst of the pandemic. They were regularly exposed to Covid-19 and involved in customer conflicts around wearing masks, and they were inconsistently offered hazard pay or other compensation for their efforts. Many retail workers said that they were not properly informed when they were exposed to the virus in stores.Anthony Stropoli, a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, holds one of the lucrative, client-facing jobs that have been fading in retail in recent years and he noted that luxury retail was a different ballgame. He previously worked at Barneys New York, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019.“A lot of people do not want to work in retail right now — I really, really see it,” Mr. Stropoli said. “People are not feeling appreciated or fairly compensated, and I think this whole Covid thing has made them really rethink that. They want to feel valued.”It all means that workers have more leverage this season than they have in the past. Joel Bines, global co-leader of the retail practice at the consulting firm AlixPartners, said if retailers want to find enough workers this season, they need to pay them more and fundamentally improve working conditions.“For retailers, who have treated their workers as dispensable cogs in order to increase the bottom line, to say they are shocked that they can’t find people to work for them is hard to believe,” Mr. Bines said.“The thing that the industry needs to realize is that workers have agency now,” he added. “They have agency in a way they never have before.”Contact Sapna Maheshwari at sapna@nytimes.com and Michael Corkery at michael.corkery@nytimes.com. More

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    U.S. Renews Its Support for the World Trade Organization

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    Trade Representative Katherine Tai outlined her vision for the battered World Trade Organization, saying the U.S. wanted to re-engage and address working people’s concerns.Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, affirmed the Biden administration’s commitment to supporting the World Trade Organization in a speech in Geneva on Thursday but said further reforms were needed to restore the global trade body’s relevance to working people.Ms. Tai addressed the organization’s shortcomings, criticizing some of its processes as “unwieldy and bureaucratic” and saying the international group had “rightfully been accused of existing in a ‘bubble,’ insulated from reality and slow to recognize global developments.”But she said the United States was committed to strengthening the organization, which critics say the Trump administration had actively worked to undermine. And she argued that the W.T.O. had a crucial role to play in steering countries through the pandemic and confronting challenges like rising inequality and climate change.“The reality of the institution today does not match the ambition of its goals,” said Ms. Tai, who spoke from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. However, she added, “We all recognize the importance of the W.T.O., and we all want it to succeed.”The speech marked a putative return of the United States to its traditional leadership role at the beleaguered trade body, which functions based on consensus from its 164 member countries. It was the first time a United States trade representative had visited the W.T.O.’s offices in Geneva in half a decade.It was also a personal return to Geneva for Ms. Tai, who litigated trade cases on behalf of the United States at the World Trade Organization earlier in her career.Ms. Tai’s visit comes at a crucial moment for the global trade body, which is struggling to make headway on issues ranging from global vaccine distribution to rules for the fishing industry as it prepares for a major ministerial conference beginning Nov. 30.The 25-year-old World Trade Organization was designed as a forum for trade negotiations as well as for settling trade disputes between its members. It also plays an important role in monitoring and publishing data about global trade. But under pressure from an expanding membership of countries, including nonmarket economies like China, it has struggled to produce new trade agreements and resolve disputes in a timely manner.The Trump administration criticized the W.T.O. for its failure to police Chinese trade practices and its limits on how the United States protects its workers, among other issues. Many other member countries had accused the United States in recent years of abandoning its traditional role as one of the organization’s greatest supporters.Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents major multinational companies, said it was “fundamentally encouraging to hear Ambassador Tai reaffirm the continued commitment of the administration to the W.T.O.”“That’s important and can’t be taken for granted,” he said. “I would agree with her, and the administration would agree with her, that the organization needs to show that it’s capable of addressing challenges and it’s not just trade for trade’s sake.”Richard E. Baldwin, a professor of international economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, posed questions to Ms. Tai after her speech. He was enthusiastic about the departure from the Trump administration’s harsh critiques. “I haven’t heard optimism and W.T.O. said in the same sentence in a long time,” he said.In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Thursday, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the W.T.O., said that despite a bruising trade war, discussion of decoupling the United States and China, and pandemic-related shortages, global trade was actually at historic highs and the multilateral trading system continued to strongly benefit the global economy.“To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of multilateral trade are greatly exaggerated,” she said. “Warnings of deglobalization are not matched by the evidence, not yet, at least.”As the organization prepares for its meeting next month, W.T.O. members are divided over whether to grant a waiver that allows countries to bypass the intellectual property protections pharmaceutical companies have on their products to more quickly produce and distribute coronavirus vaccines to lower-income nations.Backed by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the Biden administration has stated its support for the waiver. But it continues to face criticism, both from supporters who say the administration isn’t doing enough to provide vaccine access to poorer countries, and from the business community, which worries about the long-run effects of the erosion of intellectual property rights.On Thursday, Ms. Tai countered accusations of the administration’s “silence” on the issue by saying the United States was working actively behind the scenes. She compared the administration’s efforts to a duck sailing on a pond where “underneath the surface the duck’s legs are going very, very fast.”Ms. Okonjo-Iweala said “there seems to be a will to find a compromise” that would allow developing countries to have access to vaccines without discouraging research and development. “That solution is within reach,” she said, adding that more than 100 developing countries were proponents of the waiver.The World Trade Organization is also under pressure in the coming weeks to conclude a two-decades-long negotiation over curtailing harmful subsidies that countries give to their fishing industries.The Biden administration has made a last-minute proposal to add provisions combating the use of forced labor on fishing boats, provisions that many countries say they support in principle but view as complicating the negotiations in the final hour.Ms. Tai said the United States had made the forced labor proposal a way of bringing “trade policy back to thinking through the impacts on working people” as well as sustainability, and that the United States was hopeful to reach consensus on the issue.Trade can be “a force for good that encourages a race to the top,” she said.Ms. Tai also suggested that the United States was ready to engage on an intense disagreement over the organization’s system for settling disputes, but that further negotiations would be needed.The W.T.O. appellate body, the final stop in the organization’s system for settling trade disputes, has been defunct since 2019, when the Trump administration refused to appoint new officials. That refusal protested a system that the White House once said had long ceased to function as its designers intended.Ms. Tai offered similar criticisms of the dispute settlement system, saying that the W.T.O. had become a forum for “prolonged, expensive and contentious” litigation, and that it was also having a chilling effect on finalizing new negotiations.She cited as an example a standoff between the United States and Europe on subsidies given to aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus. It resulted in 16 years of litigation at the W.T.O. and was only resolved through outside talks in June.But she distanced herself from the Trump administration’s more combative approach at the W.T.O., emphasizing that the United States was eager to engage and work toward solutions.“If you will listen to us, we will listen to you, and let’s start the reform process from there,” she said. More

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    How Asia, Once a Vaccination Laggard, Is Revving Up Inoculations

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    Several countries are now on track to surpass the United States in fully vaccinating their populations, lifting hopes of a more permanent return to normality.SINGAPORE — As the United States and Europe ramped up their Covid-19 vaccination programs, the Asia-Pacific region, once lauded for its pandemic response, struggled to get them off the ground. Now, many of those laggards are speeding ahead, lifting hopes of a return to normality in nations resigned to repeated lockdowns and onerous restrictions.The turnabout is as much a testament to the region’s success in securing supplies and working out the kinks in their programs as it is to vaccine hesitancy and political opposition in the United States.South Korea, Japan and Malaysia have even pulled ahead of the United States in the number of vaccine doses administered per 100 people — a pace that seemed unthinkable in the spring. Several have surpassed the United States in fully vaccinating their populations or are on track to do so, limiting the perniciousness of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.In South Korea, the authorities said vaccines had helped keep most people out of the hospital. About 0.6 percent of fully vaccinated people who contracted Covid had severe illness and about 0.1 percent died, according to data collected by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency from May to August.In Japan, serious cases have fallen by half over the last month, to a little over 1,000 a day. Hospitalizations have plummeted from a high of just over 230,000 in late August to around 31,000 on Tuesday.“It’s almost like the tortoise and the hare,” said Jerome Kim, director general of the International Vaccine Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Seoul and focused on vaccine research for the developing world. “Asia was always going to use vaccines when they became available.”Pfizer vaccines arriving in South Korea in July. When the country opened vaccinations to people in their 50s, roughly 10 million simultaneously logged on to a government website to sign up for shots.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressRisks remain for the region. Most of the countries do not manufacture their own vaccines and could face supply problems if their governments approve boosters.In Southeast Asia, the rollout has been slow and uneven, dragging down economic prospects there. The Asian Development Bank recently lowered its 2021 growth outlook for developing Asia to 7.1 percent from 7.3 percent, in part over vaccination issues.But for much of the region, the shift has been striking, success that is rooted in its different worldviews and governance structures.In a contrast with the United States, vaccines were never a polarizing issue in Asia-Pacific.Although each country has had to contend with its own anti-vaccine movements, they have been relatively small. They have never benefited from an ecosystem — sympathetic media, advocacy groups and politicians — that has allowed misinformation to influence the populace.Overall, most Asians have trusted their governments to do the right thing, and they were willing to put the needs of the community over their individual freedoms.Reuben Ng, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy who has studied vaccine hesitancy globally for the past decade, said that pre-Covid, the discussion around immunization had always been mixed in Asia because of some skepticism about the safety.But Mr. Ng and his team, who have been analyzing media reports, have found that the region now holds mostly positive views on vaccines.An overcrowded hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, in July, when the country was dealing with a sudden increase in Covid cases.Trisnadi/Associated PressThere is widespread belief in Asia that vaccines are the only way out of the pandemic. This month, when a vaccination center in Tokyo offered 200 walk-in shots for young people, hopefuls queued from the early morning hours, and the line extended for blocks.In South Korea, when the authorities opened vaccinations to people in their 50s, roughly 10 million simultaneously logged on to a government website to sign up for shots. The system, which was designed to process up to 300,000 requests at a time, temporarily crashed.People in poorer nations whose lives were upended by extended lockdowns felt they had no choice but to get vaccinated. Indonesia and the Philippines are home to thousands of daily-wage workers who cannot rely on unemployment benefits to survive.Arisman, 35, a motorcycle taxi driver in Jakarta, Indonesia, said he got his second shot of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine in July because his job involved contact with many people.“If I get sick, I don’t get money,” said Arisman, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “If I don’t work, I don’t get money.”The lack of social safety nets in many Asian countries motivated many governments to roll out the vaccines quickly, said Tikki Pangestu, a co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Immunization Coalition, a group that assesses Covid-19 vaccine preparedness. “At the end of the day, if they don’t do it, they’re going to end up with social unrest, which is the last thing they want,” he added.A farmer in rural Sabak Bernam, Malaysia, getting vaccinated in July. The lack of social safety nets in many Asian countries motivated many governments to roll out the vaccines quickly.Vincent Thian/Associated PressWhen the United States and European nations were rushing to vaccinate their people late last year, many Asian countries felt they had the luxury of time. They had kept the coronavirus under control by masking, testing and keeping their borders shut. Many nations wanted to wait until the clinical trials were completed before they placed orders.Then came the Delta variant. Despite keeping their countries largely sealed off, the virus found its way in. And when it did, it spread quickly. In the summer, South Korea battled its worst wave of infections; hospitals in Indonesia ran out of oxygen and beds; and in Thailand, health care workers had to turn away patients.With cases surging, countries quickly shifted their vaccination approach.Sydney, Australia, announced a lockdown in June after an unvaccinated limousine driver caught the Delta variant from an American aircrew. Then, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who had previously said vaccination “was not a race,” called in July on Australians to “go for gold” in the country’s inoculation drive.He moved to overcome a supply shortage, compounded by the slow regulatory approval. In August, Australia bought one million Pfizer doses from Poland; this month, Mr. Morrison announced a purchase of a million Moderna shots from Europe.When the Delta outbreak emerged, fewer than 25 percent of Australians over the age of 16 had received a single shot. In the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, 86 percent of the adult population has now received a first dose, and 62 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. The country expects to fully inoculate 80 percent of its population over the age of 16 by early November.“There was great community leadership — there were people from across the political divide who came out to support vaccination,” said Greg Dore, an infectious-disease expert at the University of New South Wales. “It really helped us turn around a level of hesitancy that was there.”Many governments have used incentives to encourage inoculations.In South Korea, the authorities eased restrictions in August on private gatherings for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to meet in larger groups while maintaining stricter curbs for others. Singapore, which has fully vaccinated 82 percent of its population, previously announced similar measures.Researchers there have also analyzed the pockets of people who refuse to be inoculated and are trying to persuade them.Dr. Ng from the National University of Singapore and his team recently found out that a group of seniors who lived alone were worried about possible adverse effects from the vaccine, fearing they could die in solitude. The volunteers promised they would visit after the vaccinations, a strategy that worked.“This targeted approach does make a difference, because at the end of the day, the mass communications campaign can only take you so far,” Dr. Ng said.Rangers in the Thai Army built bamboo beds for hospitals in the southern province of Narathiwat last week.Madaree Tohlala/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOnce countries were able to order vaccines, many had to scramble to set up the infrastructures needed to immunize the masses and quell public anger over the initially slow rollouts.Miharu Kuzuhara, 26, a graphic illustrator in Tokyo, got her Pfizer shots in July and August but was frustrated that she had to wait that long. “We were losing to our other Asian neighbors, like Taiwan and South Korea,” Ms. Kuzuhara said. “I had this feeling of disappointment, like Japan is really the worst.”The Japanese government dispatched the country’s military to run vaccination centers in Tokyo and Osaka and authorized companies to give shots to their employees. Local governments offered payments to doctors and nurses to administer the shots during their days off.The share of people inoculated against Covid-19 in Japan, at 69.6 percent, recently overtook that of the United States. In some rural areas, vaccination rates are already close to 100 percent. “Normally, people are hesitant, they’re not very enthusiastic about vaccines,” said Dr. Takashi Nakano, a professor of infectious diseases at Kawasaki Medical School. But “there was strong political commitment, a real feeling in the nation that because this is an infectious disease, we need to take steps to prevent it.”Reporting was contributed by More

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    Biden’s New Vaccine Push Is a Fight for the U.S. Economy

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    The effort reflects the continuing and evolving threat the coronavirus pandemic poses to the economic recovery.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s aggressive move to expand the number of vaccinated Americans and halt the spread of the Delta variant is not just an effort to save lives. It is also an attempt to counter the continuing and evolving threat that the virus poses to the economy.Delta’s rise has been fueled in part by the inability of Mr. Biden and his administration to persuade millions of vaccine-refusing Americans to inoculate themselves against the virus. That has created another problem: a drag on the economic recovery. Real-time gauges of restaurant visits, airline travel and other services show consumers pulled back on some face-to-face spending in recent weeks.After weeks of playing down the threat that a new wave of infections posed to the recovery, the president and his team blamed Delta for slowing job growth in August. “We’re in a tough stretch,” he conceded on Thursday, after heralding the economic progress made under his administration so far this year, “and it could last for a while.”The virus threatens the recovery even though consumers and business owners are not retrenching the way they did when the coronavirus began to spread in the United States in the spring of 2020. Far fewer states and cities have imposed restrictions on business activity than in previous waves, and administration officials vowed on Thursday that the nation would not return to “lockdowns or shutdowns.”But a surge in deaths crippled consumer confidence in August and portends a possible chill in fall spending as people again opt for limited in-person commerce. The unchecked spread of the virus has also contributed to a rapid drop in the president’s approval ratings — even among Democrats.The explosion of new cases and deaths also appears to have deterred many would-be workers from accepting open jobs in businesses across the country, economists say. That comes as businesses and consumers are complaining about a labor shortage and as administration officials pin their hopes on rising wages to power consumer spending in place of fading government support for distressed families.The plan Mr. Biden announced on Thursday would mandate vaccinations for federal employees and contractors and for millions of health care workers, along with new Labor Department rules requiring vaccines or weekly tests for employees at companies with more than 100 employees. It would push for more testing, offer more aid to small businesses, call on schools to adopt vaccine requirements and provide easy access to booster shots for eligible Americans. The president estimated the requirements would affect 100 million Americans, or about two-thirds of all workers.“We have the tools to combat the virus,” he said, “if we can come together and use those tools.”Mr. Biden faces political risks from his actions, which drew swift backlash from many conservative lawmakers who accused him of violating the Constitution and abusing his powers.But administration officials have always viewed vaccinating more Americans as the primary strategy for reviving the recovery.“This is an economic downturn that has been spawned from a public health crisis,” Cecilia Rouse, the chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said last month in an interview. “So we will get back to economic health when we get past the virus, when we return to public health as well.”That is likely true even in places that already have high inoculation rates. Mr. Biden’s inability thus far to break through vaccine hesitancy, particularly in conservative areas, has also become a psychological spending drag on those in highly vaccinated areas. That is because vaccinated Americans appear more likely to pull back on travel, dining out and other activity out of fear of the virus.“People who vaccinate themselves very early are people who are already very careful,” said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, a University of Pennsylvania economist who has studied the interplay between the pandemic and the economy. “People who do not vaccinate themselves are less careful. So there is a multiplier effect” when it comes to those kinds of decisions.The economic effect from the virus varies by region, and it has changed in key ways over the course of the pandemic. In some heavily vaccinated parts of the country — including liberal states packed with Mr. Biden’s supporters — virus-wary Americans have pulled back on economic activity, even though infection rates in their areas are low. In some less-vaccinated states like Texas that have experienced a large Delta wave, data suggest rising hospitalization and death rates are not driving down activity as much as they did in previous waves.“It appears the latest Covid surge has been less impactful on the economy than previous surges in Texas,” said Laila Assanie, a senior business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which surveys employers in the state each month about their activity during the pandemic.Business owners, Ms. Assanie said, “said they were better prepared this time around.”The threat of the Delta variant has caused consumers to pull back on some face-to-face spending.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesRespondents to the survey said consumer spending had not fallen off as much this summer, compared with the initial spread of the coronavirus in March 2020 or a renewed spike last winter, even as case and hospitalization rates neared their previous peak from January. But many employers reported staffing pressures from workers falling ill with the virus. The share of businesses reporting that concerns about the pandemic were an impediment to hiring workers tripled from July to August.Data from Homebase, which provides time-management software to small businesses, show that employment in entertainment, dining and other coronavirus-sensitive sectors has fallen in recent weeks as the Delta variant has spread. But the decline is smaller than during the spike in cases last winter, suggesting that economic activity has become less sensitive to the pandemic over time. Other measures likewise show that economic activity has slowed but not collapsed as cases have risen..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}That trend has helped bolster overall consumer spending and hiring in the short term and helped keep the economy on track for its fastest annual growth in a quarter century. But there is a risk that it will be undercut by a continued pandemic dampening of labor force participation. Economists who have tracked the issue say that even if consumers have grown more accustomed to shopping or dining out as cases rise, there is little sign that would-be workers, even vaccinated ones, have become more accepting of the risks of returning to service jobs as the pandemic rages.“It’s becoming increasingly clear that employers are eager to hire,” said Andrew Atkeson, an economist at the University of California at Los Angeles who has released several papers on the economics of the pandemic. “The problem is not that people aren’t spending. It’s that people are still reluctant to go back to work”The Delta wave also appears to be sidelining some workers by disrupting child care and, in some cases, schools — forcing parents to take time off or to delay returning to jobs.Some forecasters believe the combination of rising vaccination rates and a growing share of Americans who have already contracted the virus will soon arrest the Delta wave and set the economy back on track for rapid growth, with small-business hiring and restaurant visits rebounding as soon as the end of this month. “Now is the time to start thinking about the post-Delta world,” Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a research note this month.Other economists see the possibility that a continued Delta wave — or a surge from another variant in the months to come — will substantially slow the recovery, because potential workers in particular remain sensitive to the spread of the virus.“That’s a very real danger,” said Austan Goolsbee, a former head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama whose research earlier in the pandemic showed fear, not government restrictions, was the driving force behind lost economic activity from the virus.“At the same time,” Mr. Goolsbee said, “it also shows promise: the fact that when we get control of the spread of the virus, or even stabilize the spread of the virus, the economy wants to come back.”The greatest lift to the country, and likely to Mr. Biden’s popularity, from finally curbing the virus would not be regained business sales or jobs created. It would be stemming a death toll that has climbed to about 650,000 since the pandemic began.“I always tell undergraduates, when they take economics with me, that economics is not about optimizing output,” said Mr. Fernández-Villaverde, the University of Pennsylvania economist. “It’s about optimizing welfare. And if you’re dead, you’re not getting a lot of welfare.”Ben Casselman More