Media Coverage

The term “tripledemic” is being used to express the concerns about the collective spread of COVID-19, influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, during this fall and winter. Yet each of these infectious diseases has their own risk profile. Placing them under the same epidemic umbrella may inadvertently overstate the impending dangers — perhaps to the point of crying wolf when a calmer descriptor would be more beneficial and appropriate.

Deceptive videos and images created using generative AI could sway elections, crash stock markets and ruin reputations. Researchers are developing methods to limit their harm.

Latest inflation numbers: Not very good news as inflation seems to be supply-side, so it is much harder to control. Gas prices will also negatively affect the price of food even more for the next quarter at least. This means that interest rates will remain high for a while, possibly even into 2025. Also, deflation is not a bad thing if it is transitory and aimed at first necessity goods, as opposed to affecting consumption in the long run.

In the UK, NHS workers ranging from nurses to junior doctors went on strike in 2023 to express their grievances about their pay. These localised and staggered strikes have caused inconvenience, but they did not affect the UK economy significantly. However, the coordinated United Auto Workers (UAW) strike in the US, which began on September 15, is much larger in terms of scale and scope.

As the United Auto Workers strike continues, it will have a cascading effect from the auto makers to their upstream suppliers providing EV batteries and other components.