BitGou: Friday Morning Briefing: U.S. virus hotspots reopen despite second wave specter

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Second-wave fears
Governors of U.S. states that are COVID-19 hotspots pressed ahead with economic reopenings that have raised fears of a second wave of infections. The moves by states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence.

In Europe, health experts said the risk of a second wave of COVID-19 infections is big enough to require lockdowns to be reimposed is moderate to high. India reported a record daily increase of cases and became the world’s fourth worst-hit country, raising the prospect of the return of a lockdown just days after it was lifted.

Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map.

Insurers beat back virus claims
U.S. property and casualty insurers have cast the coronavirus pandemic as an unprecedented event whose cost to small businesses they are neither able nor required to cover. The industry has warned it could cost them $255 billion to $431 billion a month if they are required, as some states are proposing, to compensate firms for income lost and expenses owed due to virus-led shutdowns, an amount it says would make insurers insolvent.

British economy battered
The UK economy shrank by a quarter in the March-April period as entire sectors were shuttered by the coronavirus lockdown. “This is catastrophic, literally on a scale never seen before in history,” Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said. “The real issue is what happens next.”

Bottlenecks? Glass vial makers prepare for vaccine
Drugmakers are warning of a potential shortage of vials to bottle future COVID-19 vaccines, but their rush to secure supplies risks making matters worse. Schott AG, the world’s largest maker of speciality glass for vaccine vials, says it has turned down requests to reserve output from major pharmaceutical firms because it does not want to commit resources before it is clear which vaccines will work.

Roping in the drones
Airspace Systems, a California startup company that makes drones that can hunt down and capture other drones, released new software for monitoring social distancing and protective face-mask wearing from the air. The software analyzes video streams captured by drones and can identify when people are wearing masks, standing close together or points where people gather in clusters. Airspace aims to sells the system to cities and police departments.

From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - UK economy, Jewelry, Animal feed. The UK’s GDP collapse all but ensures further Bank of England asset purchases, and DSM’s $1 billion deal will please cattle more than shareholders. Catch up with the latest financial insights.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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U.S.

Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll. The national survey on June 9-10, shows the public broadly on the side of Democratic lawmakers, who proposed a series of changes to police departments in the United States as protesters gathered nationwide to condemn the death of George Floyd and racism.

The Trump administration plans to reinterpret a Cold War-era arms agreement between 34 nations with the goal of allowing U.S. defense contractors to sell more American-made drones to a wide array of nations, three defense industry executives and a U.S. official told Reuters.

Once feted as pioneers, some of the architects of Europe’s empire building now face a backlash: Anti-racism protesters are demanding their legacies be revisited and their often imposing statues be torn down and consigned to the trash heap of history. Opponents of the symbols, including monuments, memorials and the Confederate flag, consider them emblems of slavery, racism and U.S. xenophobia. Supporters say they represent the South’s heritage and culture, and serve as a memorial to Confederate casualties during the 1861-65 Civil War.

Reuters Investigates

Special Report: How China got shipments of Venezuelan oil despite U.S. sanctions. Chinese customs data show imports of Venezuelan crude plunged last year. But China did not stop buying the South American country’s oil. A Reuters review of data shows the roundabout delivery method China used after the U.S. stepped up Venezuela sanctions.

Covid Science

Japan's PeptiDream to work with Merck in developing COVID-19 therapies

Japanese drug-discovery company PeptiDream said on Friday it would collaborate with Merck in developing COVID-19 therapies. The companies will work to develop peptide therapeutics that may be effective against multiple coronavirus strains, they said in a release.

1 min read

Follow the money

Futures climb after Wall Street's worst day in three months

U.S. stock index futures surged about 2% on Friday, pointing to a quick rebound for Wall Street from its biggest one-day dive in about three months on fears of a resurgence in coronavirus infections.

2 min read

U.S. manufacturers struggle to keep workers in face of weak demand

Cheryl Wellman was able to bring back most of her furloughed workers last month with the help of a special government loan. Now she’s laying them off again. Some of the strength in the U.S. payrolls report for May - which included a startling 225,000 manufacturing jobs added - was the result of companies taking part in this program. The problem now is that demand in many industrial sectors, from oil and gas to construction equipment, remains depressed.

5 min read

What rebound? North Dakota in economic crunch as virus batters oil, agriculture

When the novel coronavirus first appeared in the United States, North Dakota was in the envious position of having more money in its state coffers than it had budgeted. Now, it is making sweeping cuts to state agencies in a bid to stem the financial bleeding from a historic oil price collapse sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, and a battered farm economy still struggling with the fallout from the U.S.-China trade war.

7 min read