March, 2020

• 15 March

  President Trump tests negative for coronavirus: White House

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump has tested negative for the novel coronavirus, according to a memorandum released by the president’s physician. “One week after having dinner with the Brazilian delegation in Mar-a-Lago, the President remains symptom-free,” Dr Sean Conley said in the memo. “We are encouraging the implementation of all their best practices for exposure reduction and transmission mitigation,” Conley said. ...

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• 15 March

  South Korea wants to show the world ‘how to tackle virus’

  

  Bloomberg South Korea has been praised for its effective response to the coronavirus pandemic. Now it wants to share its lessons with the world. South Korean President Moon Jae-in suggested that US President Donald Trump hold a G-20 teleconference summit to discuss how South Korea worked to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus, a statement from Moon’s office said. ...

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• 15 March

  Georgia delays March Democratic primary

  

  Bloomberg Election officials in Georgia will postpone the Democratic primary scheduled for March 24 until May 19 due to worries about the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “Events are moving rapidly and my highest priority is protecting the health of our poll workers, their families, and the community at large,” said Raffensperger, a Republican. A person familiar ...

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• 15 March

  Singapore says UK’s not trying to combat virus

  

  Bloomberg The UK and Switzerland are effectively not trying to combat the coronavirus and cases in the countries are likely to surge in the coming weeks, a Singapore minister said. “One concern we have with cases such as UK and Switzerland isn’t just about the numbers. It is that these countries have abandoned any measure to contain or restrain the ...

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• 15 March

  When Trudeau put Canada into crisis mode from quarantine

  

  Bloomberg Justin Trudeau had 24 hours to transform his governing Liberals from progressive champions to crisis managers. Canada’s parliament kicked off the week with legislation to ban conversion therapy, a controversial custom. It ended on March 13 with a coordinated effort to prevent the nation’s economy from tumbling into a recession due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Trudeau orchestrated the ...

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• 15 March

  Not ready for pandemic? Be ready for cyberattack

  

  Amid the chaos of coronavirus, it was encouraging to see a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission announce a coherent plan for dealing with the next potential catastrophe — a major cyberattack against the United States. Covid-19 has given us all a foretaste of what a crippling cyberattack would look like: Transportation, infrastructure and health care services would all be severely disrupted. We’d ...

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• 15 March

  Can closing schools slow pandemic?

  

  Suddenly, every country in the world has to decide whether or not to close schools to slow the Covid-19 pandemic. France will, as of Monday; the UK won’t, and so on. Within federal systems like the US and Germany, states or school districts have to make the decision. In Germany, tiny Saarland is shuttering its schools, while other states are ...

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• 15 March

  Finally, good news on coronavirus testing

  The US woke up to its first good coronavirus testing news in a while last week, after weeks of hearing about nothing but delays and dangerously inadequate capacity. The Food and Drug Administration announced an emergency authorisation of a Roche Holding AG test that can screen patients substantially faster than existing options. It’s good news for Roche — the approval ...

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• 15 March

  With oil this cheap, why bother going green?

  Three months ago, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced — to much fanfare — a “Green Deal” to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. Alas, a few things have happened since, including a pandemic and an oil shock. Together, these unforeseeable events cast doubt over the Green Deal just as it’s supposed to become legislation ...

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• 15 March

  Covid-19 aid should go to citizens, not corporations

  

  The most infuriating aspect of the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis was the contrast between its generosity to companies and its lack of generosity to citizens. Congress passed a $700 billion bailout for the banking industry. AIG received $180 billion worth of loans from the Federal Reserve. The auto industry received nearly $81 billion in taxpayer funds. Yet ...

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