Think Tank Warns Coronavirus Cutting Off US-China Back Channels

Here is more from Politico:

The global pandemic and a dramatic rise in U.S.-China tensions have further eroded the unofficial talks that have so often underpinned relations since the two sides restored diplomatic ties decades ago.

“The pandemic has cut off personal meetings. That is very bad,” said Wang Huiyao, director with the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank that includes former Chinese officials and prominent Chinese scholars. “Many messages can only be conveyed indirectly by spokespersons and media, which could compromise the effectiveness of the communication and easily lead to misunderstanding.”

Here is a link to the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), which was founded by Dr. Wang Huiyao and Dr. Miao Lu in 2008.

White House Official (Now a Think Tanker) Had Warned Trump Admin. in 2019 of Devastating Pandemic

Here is more from the New York Times:

White House economists published a study last September that warned a pandemic disease could kill a half million Americans and devastate the economy.  It went unheeded inside the administration.

One of the authors of the study, who has since left the White House, now says it would make sense for the administration to effectively shut down most economic activity for two to eight months to slow the virus.

Outside economists have been pumping out analyses on the optimal length of a shutdown almost daily. One that has been shared with officials inside the White House comes from Anna Scherbina, an author of the 2019 study who is now an economist at Brandeis University and the American Enterprise Institute.

Anna Scherbina is a visiting scholar at AEI.  Here is her working paper on determining the optimal duration of the COVID-19 suppression policy.

Another AEI scholar, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Trump Administration, has co-authored a new report on a national COVID-19 surveillance system.

Dr. Gottlieb has reportedly been talking with lawmakers about crafting legislation to put his surveillance system in place.

That paper was co-authored with Mark McClellan, another former FDA commissioner (under George W. Bush) who used to be a scholar at AEI as well as the Brookings Institution.

Here is a link to all of AEI's COVID-19 coverage, including its COVID-19 Action Tracker.