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 ...
Read More »Is Covid-19 recession already here and now?
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 ...
Read More »US should buy Covid-19 vaccine before invention
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 ...
Read More »Plastic surgeons in virus fight in US? Doctors are doctors
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 ...
Read More »Johnson’s virus response keeps getting bigger
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 ...
Read More »Economic crash may dent EV revolution
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. ...
Read More »GameStop falls on view Covid-19 outbreak may force store closures
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 ...
Read More »Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing calls
Bloomberg Hey Alexa, stop listening to my client’s information. As law firms urge attorneys to work from home during the global pandemic, their employees’ confidential phone calls with clients run the risk of being heard by Amazon.com Inc and Google. Mishcon de Reya LLP, the UK law firm that does corporate law, issued advice to staff to mute or shut ...
Read More »Global central banks go into overdrive as crisis deepens
Bloomberg Central banks stepped up their emergency efforts to calm financial markets and support their economies in a historic week of market losses as more of the world shuts down to contain the coronavirus outbreak. Meeting into their nights, policy makers at the Federal Reserve launched a program to support money market mutual funds, hours after those at the European ...
Read More »Indonesia cuts rate for second month
Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for a second straight month and slashed its economic growth forecast, joining global policy makers seeking to shore up their economies amid the coronavirus crisis. Bank Indonesia lowered the seven-day reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 4.50%, in line with the forecasts of 14 of 26 economists surveyed by ...
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