Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Donald Trump and other leaders want to ramp up coronavirus testing. There’s just one problem: Providers of the diagnostics can’t make enough kits to keep up with demand. The UK will soon be testing 25,000 people a day for the virus, Johnson said at a press conference, and that could eventually rise ...

By now, it must be obvious to almost everyone that we can’t — and won’t — escape another recession. The coronavirus pandemic is pushing just about every major segment of the US economy into serious decline. Frightened consumers are cutting their purchases. Businesses have already curbed investment spending and, facing new uncertainties, are likely to retrench further. Global trade has ...

They are the most numerous and lowest-paid US healthcare workers: the 4.5 million caregivers who assist elderly and disabled people with such daily activities as bathing, dressing, feeding and toileting. Compared to other medical workers, they have the most frequent and personal contact with the elderly. That puts them on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Known in the ...

Although President Donald Trump has declared the coronavirus a national emergency and leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he would “call out the military now” to deal with it, Defense Department officials are unenthusiastic about the prospect. And well they should be. There are lots of practical reasons the military isn’t a substitute for the public health infrastructure needed ...

The federal government is moving at a breakneck pace to respond to the coronavirus recession. In the states, however, the preliminary data suggests staggering job losses, exceeding economists’ expectations of just a week ago. If the pattern holds, it will mark the sharpest downturn in the labour market on record. A spike in initial claims for unemployment insurance is among ...

The $8.3 billion spending bill that President Donald Trump signed last week to address the coronavirus crisis contains a provision that could be costly: When a vaccine for the virus becomes available, the law says, the government can spend no more than a “fair and reasonable” price for it. But it does not require the drugmaker to accept such a ...

Add doctors to hospital beds and lab testing on the list of things that risk being in short supply as the coronavirus continues to spread in the US. America has 2.61 physicians per 1,000 people, ranking it 26th out of 35 countries in an OECD database. Not all of these professionals are best suited to meet the current crisis due ...

From Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron to Boris Johnson, world leaders have rushed to echo Mario Draghi’s words as the European Central Bank prepared to deal with the financial crisis: We will do “whatever it takes.” And yet there is no consensus on what exactly is required — not on the magnitude of relief, not on the timing of different ...

Bloomberg The electric vehicle revolution that by most accounts was ramping up in 2020 faces one of the biggest threats since EVs started to go mainstream in the last decade. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in late December has paralysed key parts of the Chinese economy. By early March, the virus spread further across Europe and into the US. ...

Bloomberg GameStop Corp shares tumbled after analysts wrote that the video-game retailer would likely have to close stores in response to the coronavirus outbreak, disputing the company’s reported view that it was an “essential” retailer. Kotaku reported that GameStop believes its stores are “essential retail,” like grocery stores or pharmacies, and therefore able to remain open despite the pandemic. “We ...