The Evening: Conflicting Forecasts, New Stimulus, Make Him An Angel and More

April 8, 2020

Conflicting Forecasts

A leading forecasting model used by many states and the White House now estimates tens of thousands fewer Covid-19 deaths by August. But a separate report to the White House by a panel of medical experts finds that the coronavirus is unlikely to significantly wane with the arrival of summer, as the Washington Post reports.

New York State now has more confirmed virus cases, 149,316, than any country in the world outside the United States and announced 779 new deaths from the virus, its highest single-day toll, but as the NYT reports, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said hospitalization figures continued to show the curve of infection flattening in the state.

New Coronavirus Stimulus

Top Democrats on Capitol Hill have set out a series of demands for small businesses, hospitals and state and local governments, as lawmakers get ready for a fresh round of negotiations on how to provide billions of dollars of stimulus to Americans struggling to cope with the coronavirus crisis, as the FT reports.

WHO Calls for Unity

The World Health Organization pushed back on Wednesday against growing criticism from the United States and Taiwan, with top officials defending their handling of the coronavirus pandemic against accusations that they were too quick to accept China’s view of the outbreak, as Politico reports .

Dive Deeper: Read the transcript from today's press call, "Next Steps for the COVID-19 Response."

On the Horizon

The Covid-19 crisis will change the Europe we have known for the past 70 years. What is on the short- and long-term horizon once the dust has settled? CSIS's Europe Program director Heather Conley explains how Covid-19 is impacting the European Union.

CSIS’s “On the Horizon” series offers insights into the more fundamental changes we might anticipate for our future social and economic world as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic.

CSIS Executive Education

We invite you to apply to Unpacking the Defense Enterprise, a a three-day live, online course exploring defense strategy, budgetary and technical issues, and future challenges and opportunities in the U.S. defense enterprise.

Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Testify,” "What's Happening," "Preview," and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

32%

The World Trade Organization said today it expects the pandemic to cause global trade to fall 13 to 32 percent in 2020 from last year and that the impact will likely be more severe than that of the 2008 financial crisis.

Source: World Trade Organization

Critical Quote

“Now is not the time to pull back at all, it’s the time to intensify.”

— Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

iDeas Lab

The Chinese economy is the 2nd largest in the world, but in 2019 the renminbi was only the 8th most traded currency in the global foreign exchange market. Read the new CSIS ChinaPower feature on China's push to internationalize its currency.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and video.

Optics

(Photo credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images). A Super Pink Moon rises behind the Empire State in New York City lit to honor COVID-19 health workers

Recommended Reading

“Will Covid-19 End the Age of Mass Protests?” by CSIS’s Sam Brannen.

Online Events

Tomorrow, at 4:30 p.m., CSIS will livestream a discussion a with Ambassador Robert King, on North Korean human rights.

Additionally, at 9:30 a.m., the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Africa Program will host a webcast, on "COVID-19 and Africa: On-the-Ground Perspectives from Five African Countries," focusing on South Africa, Libya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Cote d'Ivoire.

And, the Brookings Institution hosts a discussion via webcast, beginning at 10:00 a.m., with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell on "COVID-19 and the economy."

Video

CSIS hosted an online discussion with Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Venezuela. Watch the full video here.

Podcasts

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman joined me to trade adviser Peter Navarro's memo to the Trump administration about the implications of Covid-19, dated back in January, and what it's like covering the White House during this pandemic.

Listen on Apple Podcasts & Spotify.

Smiles

“How the hell can a person go to work in the morning/And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.”

John Prine was one of America’s greatest songwriters—a Mount Rushmore figure in American music, really. He passed yesterday at 73 due to complications from Covid-19. His most stirring work is perhaps “Angel From Montgomery” which many know from Bonnie Raitt’s cover. But watch Prine sing it his way, he’s with the angels now…