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Thailand Skips Lockdown to Save Economy, But GDP to Take Hit – Yahoo Canada Finance

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The Canadian Press

California virus deaths rocket higher as ICU space tightens

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and the state’s hospital association are at odds over how best to create space for critically ill coronavirus patients at already strained medical facilities that soon could be overwhelmed by the expected surge of new cases from holiday gatherings.A surge following Halloween and Thanksgiving produced record hospitalizations and now the most seriously ill of those patients are dying in unprecedented numbers. California health authorities reported Thursday 583 new deaths and a record two-day total of 1,042.The state has deployed 88 refrigerated trailers, up from 60 a few weeks ago, for use as makeshift morgues, mostly in hard-hit Southern California.Hospitalizations are nearing 22,000 and state models project the number could reach 30,000 by Feb 1. Already, many hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas are struggling to keep up and warned they may need to ration care as intensive care beds dwindle.Earlier this week, state health officials caught hospitals off guard and left them scrambling with new orders limiting nonessential surgeries and requiring hospitals that have scarce ICU space to accept patients from those that have run out, an order that may require transferring patients hundreds of miles.The California Hospital Association said the orders don’t go far enough to address a crisis that “cannot be overstated.” It wants changes including reducing paperwork that it says is sapping hours daily from nurses who would otherwise be treating patients.Carmela Coyle, the association’s president and chief executive, said the group has been negotiating with state officials but they aren’t acting fast enough.“We really need to move quickly to co-ordinate and see if we can eliminate the burden on the health care delivery system — focus on nothing other than saving lives for the next few weeks,” she said.State epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan responded Thursday that the administration is “committed to continuing to closely co-ordinate and partner with hospitals and local leaders.” She said state officials “appreciate any suggestions from those on the ground fighting this pandemic every day.”Meantime, seeking to keep people closer to home, the Newsom administration issued a more strident travel advisory that says out-of-state residents are “strongly discouraged” from entering California, and Californians should avoid nonessential travel more than 120 miles (193 kilometres) from home.The state’s advisory in November encouraged people to stay home or within their region without giving a specific number of miles. It outlined quarantine guidelines for out-of-state travellers but did not explicitly discourage travel.Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, an affiliated assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University and a former director in the San Francisco Department of Public Health, questioned the effectiveness of a distance requirement, noting it will be difficult to enforce and people may tune out yet another piece of state guidance. He said California, broadly, hasn’t provided adequate data to back up restrictions.“They simply don’t want to give anybody any opportunity to interact,” he said.People travelling more than 120 miles are more likely to be accessing commercial services like hotels, said a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, noting the distance is designed to be fair for rural and urban residents.Coyle said the orders affecting hospitals that were issued Tuesday don’t provide the help that hospitals desperately need.Most hospitals affected by the nonessential surgeries order already cancelled the sort of procedures barred by the state, like non-urgent spinal or carpal tunnel release surgeries, she said. It applies only to hospitals in 14 of 58 counties, all in Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, two regions that have the most pronounced ICU bed shortage.Coyle said it’s also unclear how often the transfer order will be used. While it could mean sending patients hundreds of miles to Northern California by ambulance, life flight helicopters or other aircraft, it’s more likely to ease transfers between nearby counties, she said.During an earlier surge, patients in Imperial County along the border with Mexico were sent to hospitals as far as the San Francisco Bay Area. But the current outbreak is so widespread that only 11 mostly rural counties north of Sacramento and San Francisco are above the state’s threshold of having at least 15% capacity for coronavirus patients in ICU beds. Those below that level are under stricter restrictions for businesses.UC Davis Health, which has the major trauma centre in the Sacramento area, said it hasn’t received any transfer requests. A spokesman there and for the Sutter Health system both referred questions to the hospital association, while Kaiser Permanente did not immediately comment.“If we can get patients in the right setting to begin with, it will minimize the need to have to transfer patients after the fact, and that’s just quite frankly better for patient care,” Coyle said.That means California should start co-ordinating patient care at the state level where officials can see the big picture on best-equipped hospitals at any given moment, instead of allowing local dispatchers to follow the usual practice of sending ambulances to the nearest facility, she said.“Yes, transferring patients is important but we have a number of big issues that need to be worked through,” she said. That includes temporarily suspending regulations that she said can tie up nurses on paperwork for hours and make it difficult to use a team approach to providing intensive care when hospitals lack sufficient critical-care-trained nurses.California Nurses Association government relations director Stephanie Roberson said team nursing is a cost-cutting move that would undermine patient care after hospitals failed to properly prepare for the surge.“It’s a slap in the face to safe patient care to actually call charting and documentation ‘red tape,’” she said.Pan said the state’s moves “will save lives” as officials look to get hospitals staff and resources.State health officials did not respond to questions on how they expect the heath orders to be applied or how many patients or hospitals might be affected.___Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, John Antczak and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Janie Har in San Francisco contributed to this story.Don Thompson, The Associated Press

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Economy

Beijing At A Loss On What To Do About Its Economic Challenges? – Forbes

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China’s annual “Two Sessions” conference has for decades revealed the party agenda to the faithful. This year’s meeting offered them little, a startling development given China’s huge economic and financial challenges – a property crisis, export shortfalls, demographic decline, a loss of confidence among consumers and private business owners, and growing hostility in foreign capitals. More than ever, China needs Beijing to act, to point the way to future action. The failure to address this need at the Two Sessions suggests that China’s leadership has run out of ideas.

Most telling was the absence of the traditional press conference. Every Two Sessions meeting has included a space for China’s leadership to interact with both domestic and foreign media. The senior men in government were not always forthcoming at these exchanges, but their evasive answers at least pointed out publicly what matters they considered touchy or awkward. When this year’s press conference was cancelled, one can only conclude that the good and the great in the Forbidden City worry about being embarrassed.

The authorities did announce a real growth target for 2024. They set it at “around 5 percent.” In one respect, this information can only be described as bland. It was expected and is very close to last year’s pace. In another respect, however, it confesses failure of a sort. It is, after all, barely over half the real growth rate China averaged up until 2019. And with all the problems, it is not clear that China can even make that rate. Last year the economy had a tailwind from pandemic recovery. None of that is in play in 2024. Meanwhile, the authorities never explained how they intended to achieve the growth.

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Infrastructure spending was mentioned, one trillion yuan ($132.9 billion) worth of it. Infrastructure is China’s default form of economic stimulus. But little was said about how China would finance such spending. Local governments, the usual source of infrastructure financing, face huge debt overhangs, some so severe that they cannot even meet the public service needs of their populations. True, Beijing said it was ready to take the unusual step of issuing central government debt to finance the spending. But even that raises questions. The government already faces record high budget deficits. The emphasis on “ultra-long bonds” may hint at how difficult financial matters have become. Long maturities will delay the need to repay the debt and show that Beijing does not expect an immediate return from its spending.

Little was said about the property crisis with all its adverse economic and financial ramifications. Despite the need for bold action on this front, all Beijing has mustered so far are the “white lists” in which local governments compile a list of failing real estate projects for financing that the state-owned banks would review before advancing the funds. The amounts discussed so far, however, are tiny compared with the need, barely over 5 percent of Evergrande’s initial failure two and half years ago. Some weeks back, talk emerged about a plan for the government to take over some 30 percent of the housing market. Although such an action would have brought China other severe problems, it would have been big enough to disguise the property crisis. Nothing as bold or substantive as that got a hearing at the Two Sessions.

On China’s deflation problem, the authorities did indicate a target of 3 percent inflation for the year but said nothing about how they planned to achieve it. To be sure, deflation is more a symptom than a cause of the country’s challenges, which in part lie with inadequate demand for consumption and capital spending by private business, but neither did China’s leadership say much about these problems either. The only concrete suggestion was a promise by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to cut interest rates more than the bank already has. Given the lack of an economic response to past rate cuts, this promise hardly seems an adequate answer. In any case, as soon as the conference ended, the PBOC at its own meeting decided against another interest rate cut.

Talk did center on new growth engines for the economy, what the conference referred to as “new productive sources.” There was little new here. Renewable energy, advanced technology, and electric vehicles led the list. Like so much else offered at the Two Sessions, the talk was all aspirational. No one suggested how China planned to promote these areas beyond what is already being done. Given the sorry state of China’s economy, that is not enough.

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If the Two Sessions is supposed to announce a guide to China’s future, this year’s meeting missed its mission, especially in the face of China’s many economic and financial problems. Perhaps more complete and substantive guidance will emerge at next month’s politburo meeting, but given how the Two Sessions went, that seems unlikely. China’s leadership seems to have run out of ideas.

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U.S. economic growth for last quarter revised up slightly to healthy 3.4% annual rate

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The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.4 per cent annual pace from October through December, the government said Thursday in an upgrade from its previous estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy expanded at a 3.2 per cent rate last quarter.

The Commerce Department’s revised measure of the nation’s gross domestic product – the total output of goods and services – confirmed that the economy decelerated from its sizzling 4.9 per cent rate of expansion in the July-September quarter.

But last quarter’s growth was still a solid performance, coming in the face of higher interest rates and powered by growing consumer spending, exports and business investment in buildings and software. It marked the sixth straight quarter in which the economy has grown at an annual rate above 2 per cent.

For all of 2023, the U.S. economy – the world’s biggest – grew 2.5 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent in 2022. In the current January-March quarter, the economy is believed to be growing at a slower but still decent 2.1 per cent annual rate, according to a forecasting model issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

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Thursday’s GDP report also suggested that inflation pressures were continuing to ease. The Federal Reserve’s favoured measure of prices – called the personal consumption expenditures price index – rose at a 1.8 per cent annual rate in the fourth quarter. That was down from 2.6 per cent in the third quarter, and it was the smallest rise since 2020, when COVID-19 triggered a recession and sent prices falling.

Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation amounted to 2 per cent from October through December, unchanged from the third quarter.

The economy’s resilience over the past two years has repeatedly defied predictions that the ever-higher borrowing rates the Fed engineered to fight inflation would lead to waves of layoffs and probably a recession. Beginning in March 2022, the Fed jacked up its benchmark rate 11 times, to a 23-year high, making borrowing much more expensive for businesses and households.

Yet the economy has kept growing, and employers have kept hiring – at a robust average of 251,000 added jobs a month last year and 265,000 a month from December through February.

At the same time, inflation has steadily cooled: After peaking at 9.1 per cent in June 2022, it has dropped to 3.2 per cent, though it remains above the Fed’s 2 per cent target. The combination of sturdy growth and easing inflation has raised hopes that the Fed can manage to achieve a “soft landing” by fully conquering inflation without triggering a recession.

Thursday’s report was the Commerce Department’s third and final estimate of fourth-quarter GDP growth. It will release its first estimate of January-March growth on April 25.

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Canadian economy starts the year on a rebound with 0.6 per cent growth in January

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The Canadian economy grew 0.6 per cent in January, the fastest growth rate in a year, while the economy likely expanded 0.4 per cent in February, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

The rate was higher than forecasted by economists, who were expecting GDP growth of 0.4 per cent in the month. December GDP was revised to a 0.1 per cent contraction from zero growth initially reported.

January’s rise, the fastest since the 0.7 per cent growth in January 2023, was helped by a rebound in educational services as public sector strikes ended in Quebec, Statistics Canada said.

WATCH | The Canadian economy grew more than expected in January: 

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Canada’s GDP increased 0.6% in January

41 minutes ago

Duration 2:20

The Canadian economy grew 0.6 per cent in January, the fastest growth rate in a year, while the economy likely expanded 0.4 per cent in February, Statistics Canada says.

“The more surprising news today was the advance estimate for February,” which suggested that underlying momentum in the economy accelerated further that month, wrote CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham in a note.

Thursday’s data shows the Canadian economy started 2024 on a strong note after growth stalled in the second half of last year. GDP was flat or negative on a monthly basis in four of the last six months of 2023.

More time for BoC to assess

The strong rebound could allow the Bank of Canada more time to assess whether inflation is slowing sufficiently without risking a severe downturn, though the central bank has said it does not want to stay on hold longer than needed.

Because recent inflation figures have come in below the central bank’s expectations, “it appears that much of the growth we are seeing is coming from an easing of supply constraints rather than necessarily a pick-up in underlying demand,” wrote Grantham.

“As a result, we still see scope for a gradual reduction in interest rates starting in June.”

WATCH | Bank of Canada left interest rate unchanged earlier this month: 

Bank of Canada leaves interest rate unchanged, says it’s too soon to cut

22 days ago

Duration 1:56

The Bank of Canada held its key interest rate at 5 per cent on Wednesday, with governor Tiff Macklem saying it was too soon for cuts. CBC News speaks with an economist and a couple who might be forced to sell their home if interest rates don’t come down.

The central bank has maintained its key policy rate at a 22-year high of five per cent since July, but BoC governors in March agreed that conditions for rate cuts should materialize this year if the economy evolves in line with its projections.

The bank in January forecast a growth rate of 0.5 per cent in the first quarter, and Thursday’s data keeps the economy on a path of small growth in the first three months of 2024. The BoC will release new projections along with its rate announcement on April 10.

Growth in 18 out of 20 sectors

Growth in January was broad-based, with 18 of 20 sectors increasing in the month, StatsCan said. The agency said that real estate and the rental and leasing sectors grew for the third consecutive month, as activity at the offices of real estate agents and brokers drove the gain in January.

Overall, services-producing industries grew 0.7 per cent, while the goods-producing sector expanded 0.2 per cent.

In a preliminary estimate for February, StatsCan said GDP was likely up 0.4 per cent, helped by mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction, manufacturing and the finance and insurance industries.

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