Bhinneka News Online: Tuesday Morning Briefing: Vaccines, not spy planes: U.S. misfires in Southeast Asia

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Vaccines, not spy planes: U.S. misfires in Southeast Asia
For months, by Zoom calls and then by jet, Indonesian ministers and officials scoured the world for access to a vaccine for the coronavirus that Southeast Asia’s biggest country is struggling to control. This month, their campaign paid off.

Three Chinese companies committed 250 million doses of vaccines to the archipelago of 270 million people. A letter of intent was signed with a UK-based company for another 100 million.

Absent from these pledges: the United States.

Not only was it not promising any vaccine, but months earlier the United States shocked Indonesian officials by asking to land and refuel its spy planes in the territory, four senior Indonesian officials told Reuters. This would reverse a decades-long policy of strategic neutrality in the country.

Europe swept by COVID wave amid anger at new curbs
European governments prepared to introduce new restrictions to try to curb a growing surge of coronavirus infections and provide economic balm to help businesses survive the pandemic.

More than 43.4 million people have been infected by the coronavirus globally and 1,158,056 have died, according to a Reuters tally, with the United States leading the way in the number of infections and deaths.
World leaders face an increasingly difficult task holding the disease at bay while keeping their economies afloat as they pin their hopes on a possible vaccine.

The United States, Russia, France and other countries have registered record numbers of infections in recent days as autumn turns to winter in the Northern Hemisphere and people congregate indoors where the risk of infection grows.

UK study finds evidence of waning antibody immunity to COVID-19 over time
Antibodies against the novel coronavirus declined rapidly in the British population during the summer, a study found on Tuesday, suggesting protection after infection may not be long lasting and raising the prospect of waning immunity in the community.

Scientists at Imperial College London have tracked antibody levels in the British population following the first wave of COVID-19 infections in March and April.

Their study found that antibody prevalence fell by a quarter, from 6% of the population around the end of June to just 4.4% in September. That raises the prospect of decreasing population immunity ahead of a second wave of infections in recent weeks that has forced local lockdowns and restrictions.

COVID's cognitive costs? Some patients' brains may age 10 years
People recovering from COVID-19 may suffer significant brain function impacts, with the worst cases of the infection linked to mental decline equivalent to the brain ageing by 10 years, researchers warned on Tuesday.

A non-peer-reviewed study of more than 84,000 people, led by Adam Hampshire, a doctor at Imperial College London, found that in some severe cases, coronavirus infection is linked to substantial cognitive deficits for months.

“Our analyses ... align with the view that there are chronic cognitive consequences of having COVID-19,” the researchers wrote in a report of their findings. “People who had recovered, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits.”

Cognitive tests measure how well the brain performs tasks - such as remembering words or joining dots on a puzzle. Such tests are widely used to assess brain performance in diseases like Alzheimer’s, and can also help doctors assess temporary brain impairments.

Track the global spread with our interactive graphic as cases surpass 43,000,000.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Snus, Construction M&A, Capgemini. Capgemini’s third-quarter results reveal some virus immunity and a plasterboard sale exposes Boral’s past mistakes. Catch up with the latest financial insights.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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U.S. Elections

President Donald Trump reveled in one of his signature achievements at a White House ceremony to celebrate U.S. Senate confirmation of his third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, eight days before the election. The made-for-TV prime-time event on the White House lawn mirrored one a month ago, when Barrett’s nomination was announced, which preceded a coronavirus outbreak among top Republicans including Trump himself.

With just a week to go until the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will criss-cross the country in an intense day of campaigning that will also see former President Barack Obama back on the stump. Trailing Biden in national opinion polls, Trump will hold rallies in three states key to his reelection hopes - Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska - while Biden journeys to Georgia and Obama campaigns on Biden’s behalf in critical Florida.

As hunger rises in America, the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout is under scrutiny ahead of the Nov. 3 election that could be decided by hotly contested Midwestern states like Wisconsin. President Donald Trump has funneled a record amount of aid to the agricultural sector, the majority going to big farms over food workers or small-scale farmers.

Recently released government data and new analysis show just how little progress Trump made in changing the trajectory of the Rust Belt region that propelled his improbable rise to the White House. While job and wage growth continued nationally under Trump, extending trends that took root under President Obama, the country’s economic weight also continued shifting south and west, according to data.

In the early days of what became a historic public health crisis, the novel coronavirus was, in the lexicon of U.S. politics, a “blue state” problem - centered in East and West Coast areas, particularly New York and New Jersey, that voted against President Donald Trump in 2016. It remained so for weeks, and that fact defined what became battle lines between mask wearers and skeptics.

COVID SCIENCE

Higher death risk found if COVID-19 causes changes to heart
A new study may help identify which COVID-19 patients with signs of heart injury are at higher risk for death. Doctors looked at 305 hospitalized patients with elevated levels of troponin, a protein released when the heart has been injured.

COVID-19 may be top cause of death among young adults in some U.S. regions
In some areas of the United States during COVID-19 outbreaks, the new coronavirus likely became the leading cause of death among adults aged 25-44, researchers say. Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), they analyzed deaths from any cause in that age group from March through July, along with drug overdose deaths during the same period in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available.