The Economist Latin America February 6, 2021

A non-peer-reviewed study suggested that the Astra-Zeneca-Oxford vaccine can reduce transmissions by two-thirds. Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency approved the AZ jab for everyone over 18. But officials in France, Germany and Sweden are recommending that it not be offered to over 65s, and in Poland to over 60s, believing there is insufficient data to say it is effective in those age groups. Switzerland refused to license it at all. Johnson & Johnson reported that its new single-jab vaccine was 66% effective overall in preventing covid-19, and that protection increases over time. As with other vaccines, J&J’s trials showed its jab has lower efficacy in South Africa, where a particularly pernicious strain of covid-19 has been observed. A peer-reviewed analysis in the Lancet of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine showed it had an…

Politics The army seized power in a coup in Myanmar and arrested Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the ruling party, the National League for Democracy. It claimed that elections the NLD won by a landslide in November were fraudulent, and that it had to intervene to ensure a fair poll could be conducted. The army said it would return power to civilians within a year. The military authorities indicted Ms Suu Kyi with the bizarre charge of importing some walkie-talkies without the proper paperwork, and the president, Win Myint, also from the NLD, with violating social-distancing rules. Mori Yoshiro, a former prime minister and the head of the organising committee for the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to start in July, complained about how long women talk at board meetings.…

EVENTS ON Wall Street have become so strange that Netflix is said to be planning a show to immortalise them. But what should be the plot? One story is of an anti-establishment movement causing chaos in high finance, just as it has in politics. Another is how volatile shares, strutting online traders and cash-crunches at brokerage firms signal that a toppy market is poised to crash. Both gloss over what is really going on. Information technology is being used to make trading free, shift information flows and catalyse new business models, transforming how markets work (see Finance section). And, despite the clamour of recent weeks, this promises to bring big long-term benefits. Don’t expect screenwriters to dwell on that, obviously. Their focus will be the 8m followers of WallStreetBets, an investment…

Politics The army seized power in a coup in Myanmar and arrested Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the ruling party, the National League for Democracy. It claimed that elections the NLD won by a landslide in November were fraudulent, and that it had to intervene to ensure a fair poll could be conducted. The army said it would return power to civilians within a year. The military authorities indicted Ms Suu Kyi with the bizarre charge of importing some walkie-talkies without the proper paperwork, and the president, Win Myint, also from the NLD, with violating social-distancing rules. Mori Yoshiro, a former prime minister and the head of the organising committee for the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to start in July, complained about how long women talk at…

A non-peer-reviewed study suggested that the Astra-Zeneca-Oxford vaccine can reduce transmissions by two-thirds. Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency approved the AZ jab for everyone over 18. But officials in France, Germany and Sweden are recommending that it not be offered to over 65s, and in Poland to over 60s, believing there is insufficient data to say it is effective in those age groups. Switzerland refused to license it at all. Johnson & Johnson reported that its new single-jab vaccine was 66% effective overall in preventing covid-19, and that protection increases over time. As with other vaccines, J&J’s trials showed its jab has lower efficacy in South Africa, where a particularly pernicious strain of covid-19 has been observed. A peer-reviewed analysis in the Lancet of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine showed it…

AMERICA’S ECONOMY will recover faster from the pandemic than its rich-world peers, the IMF predicts. Not because it has controlled the spread of disease—it hasn’t—but mostly because of its enormous economic stimulus, which boosted household incomes by more than 6% in 2020 even as the unemployment rate peaked near 15%. Before Joe Biden became president, Congress had already spent $4trn fighting the crisis. Now he proposes $1.9trn more emergency spending, which would take the total to over 25% of GDP in 2019. Republicans think that is too much. A group of the party’s senators has made a counteroffer of a plan worth about $600bn (see United States section). The right size for the bill is not best judged from the top down. America is not in a normal recession that is…