BitGou: Monday Morning Briefing: What you need to know about the coronavirus today

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Airborne transmission
Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that the novel coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people and they are calling for the World Health Organization to revise its recommendations, the New York Times reported. However, the health agency said the evidence for the virus being airborne was not convincing, according to the NYT. "Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Dr Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead of infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying

World’s third-highest
India now has the world’s third-highest number of novel coronavirus cases behind Brazil and the United States at nearly 700,000, according to the latest data, as the outbreak shows no sign of slowing. India has seen eight times the number of cases recorded in China, which has a similar-sized population and is where the virus originated late last year. Late on Sunday, India canceled the planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, citing the risk of coronavirus infections spreading in the city of Agra from visitors flocking to see India’s most famous monument.

Not since the Spanish flu
Officials are closing the border between Australia’s two most populous states from Tuesday for an indefinite period as they scramble to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Melbourne. It will be the first time the border between Victoria and New South Wales has been shut in 100 years. Officials last blocked movement between the two states in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic. Victoria’s only other internal border, with the state of South Australia, is already closed.

Slow and painful recovery
German industrial orders rebounded moderately in May and a fifth of firms in Europe’s biggest economy said in a survey that they feared insolvency, adding to expectations of a slow and painful recovery from the pandemic. Germany has withstood the health crisis better than other big European countries, recording fewer COVID-19 deaths. Its economy has been relatively resilient during more than six weeks of lockdown owing to generous stimulus packages and a decision to keep open factories and construction sites.

UK pledges boost for the arts
Britain will invest nearly $2 billion in the arts and hopes to allow outdoor and socially distanced performances at cultural venues as it tries to help a high-profile sector hit hard by the coronavirus. Spanning theaters in London’s West End, opera houses and ballet companies putting on big-budget performances to provincial venues up and down the country, the industry is a prominent British export and popular among tourists and locals alike.

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

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Emerging from lockdown

Why time feels so weird in 2020: The global coronavirus pandemic has heightened our awareness that time is subjective. For some people who enjoy working from home, the days have whizzed by. For others desperate to travel or visit a loved one, time has slowed to a crawl. Clocks were invented to help us track the passage of time - and yet in some moments when staring at a clock, we’re made aware of just how long a second can feel.

Die in detention or at home? Reuters spoke to more than 30 lawyers, immigration advocates, detainees and their family members who said the risks of contracting COVID-19 inside detention facilities have driven people to seek deportation. Fifteen immigration lawyers and advocates, who together say they have received hundreds of requests from detainees seeking to leave facilities in eight U.S. states for health reasons, told Reuters they are seeing increases in the number of people considering abandoning their cases.

It’s tough to do any useful work when you’re stuck at home, struggling to home-school bickering kids, let alone when you’re trying to produce a COVID-19 vaccine. British drugmaker AstraZeneca had spent years preparing for a pandemic, but when the moment finally came it was caught cold on a crucial front: stressed parents working from home struggled to focus. So the company recruited up to 80 teachers to run online lessons and repurposed a car parking app to book virtual classes.

COVID Science

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said it began late-stage clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of its antibody cocktail in preventing and treating COVID-19, sending its shares up nearly 4%. The trial, run jointly with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, would test the therapy's ability to prevent infection in those who have had close exposure to a COVID-19 patient.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to Becton Dickinson for a COVID-19 antigen test that can be administered at the point of care and produce results within 15 minutes, the company said. Antigen tests are a relatively new type of test for COVID-19 that work by scanning for proteins that can be found on or inside a virus.

New normal: How far is safe enough? Among the many ways COVID-19 has reshaped our lives, one of its most enduring effects may be changes to the way we use and move through public spaces. Parks, restaurants, theaters and more all pose hazards for virus transmission, and governments are setting out new restrictions to make these places safer.

Follow the money

Who you gonna call? Germbusters! Pandemic drives boom in spray machines

Timothy Kane, CEO of Goodway Technologies Corp, has never been so popular. Making machines that spray disinfectant, once a niche business, is now an essential service - and the phone is ringing off the hook. “Our orders jumped 50-fold in April, it was like a switch got flipped,” said Kane.

5 min read

Patchy demand at stores spells more pain for garment suppliers

Fashion brands and retailers re-opening around the world to patchy demand, and carrying unsold stock from spring have cut fall orders by as much as two-thirds in moves spelling more pain for Asian suppliers.

4 min read

Buy now, pay whenever? Lockdown lift for online shopping loans

Afterpay is among a handful of alternative credit firms which offer small loans, mostly to online shoppers, and make their money by charging merchants a 4%-6% commission. These buy-now-pay-later firms have benefited from a shift to online shopping during the coronavirus crisis in countries including the United States, where state aid has also boosted retail sales.

7 min read