2020年7月29日星期三

Wednesday Morning Briefing: U.S. records 10,000 coronavirus deaths in 11 days

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

10,000 deaths in 11 days
U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus were approaching 150,000 on Wednesday, the highest level in the world and up by 10,000 in 11 days, a Reuters tally showed.

This is the fastest increase in fatalities since the United States went from 100,000 cases to 110,000 cases in 11 days in early June.

Nationally, COVID-19 deaths have risen for three weeks in a row while the number of new cases week-on-week fell for the first time since June.

A spike in infections in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas this month has overwhelmed hospitals. The rise has forced states to make a U-turn on reopening economies that were restricted by lockdowns in March and April.

Wrangling resumes in Washington
Top Trump administration officials and Democratic congressional leaders will try on Wednesday to narrow their differences over a coronavirus aid bill, with no guarantees they can craft a compromise before some jobless benefits expire at the end of this week.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were expected to resume negotiations with the two senior Democrats in Congress - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

An hour-long meeting of the four broke up on Tuesday with no sign of progress.

Senate Republican leaders are pushing for around $1 trillion in new aid, on top of more than $3 trillion enacted since early this year. Democrats see a far greater need as they back $3 trillion in new spending.

‘Quarantine roulette’
Heathrow Airport, once Europe’s busiest, called on Britain to urgently back a passenger testing regime, warning that without one, the country’s strict quarantine rules will stop travel, stall the economy and lead to more job losses.

Heathrow said that to avoid losing a game of global “quarantine roulette”, the government should change its rules to cut quarantine from 14 days to around eight for passengers who take two tests over the course of a week.

The worst public health crisis since the 1918 influenza outbreak has wrought economic turmoil across the world and just as the travel industry restarted there are fears of a second wave of shutdowns after Britain hastily imposed a quarantine on travelers from Spain.

The cost of having a coronavirus test at the airport would be about 150 pounds ($195) per person and the passenger would be expected to pay.

Aged care home crisis in Australia
Australia has sent defense and emergency medical teams, usually deployed to disaster zones, to aged care homes in Melbourne to help contain the country’s worst outbreak of the virus. There are 804 active COVID-19 cases linked to the homes, including workers, state premier Daniel Andrews said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison described as “very distressing” the situation in 13 care facilities in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is capital.

The outbreaks have largely been due to transmission from workers at the homes, many of whom might have been unaware they were carrying the virus. “When it rains, everyone gets wet. And that is what we’re seeing with broad-based community transmission in Victoria,” Morrison said.

Melbourne, Australia’s second-most populous city, is in the midst of a reimposed lockdown that has stalled the reopening of businesses, forced other states to shut borders with Victoria and held off reopening travel with New Zealand.

Brink of large coronavirus outbreak
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam warned the city is on the brink of a large-scale outbreak and urged people to stay indoors as strict measures to curb the spread took effect on Wednesday.

The new regulations ban gatherings of more than two people, close dining in restaurants and make the wearing of face masks mandatory in public places, including outdoors. These are the toughest measures introduced in the city since the outbreak.

The government has also tightened testing and quarantine arrangements for sea and air crew members. The measures will be in place for at least seven days.

Track spread with our U.S-focused and global live interactive graphics

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Drugs, Planes, Parcels.
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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

We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources. Here’s a look at our coverage.

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Top Stories

A group of top Republican U.S. Senators ramped up pressure on TikTok, asking the Trump administration to assess the threat that the popular Chinese-owned video sharing app might meddle in U.S. elections. In a letter, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton and other lawmakers cited alleged censorship by TikTok of sensitive content, including a video critical of China’s treatment of its Uighur minority, as well as alleged attempts by Beijing to manipulate political discussions on social media apps.

France will continue to take a tough line on defending the rights of French fishermen in Brexit talks but a deal with the United Kingdom is still possible, France’s new European affairs minister Clement Beaune said on Wednesday. “We will not accept a deal at any price,” he told France Inter radio in his first public comments on Brexit since his appointment on Sunday.

Fahmi Reza was once sentenced to jail in Malaysia for portraying former prime minister Najib Razak as a clown. That image has now been updated and re-posted with “GUILTY” written across Najib’s eyes in red. As Najib was sentenced to 12 years in jail in the first verdicts against him related to the multi-billion dollar scandal over the 1MDB state fund, Fahmi was among the critics, investigators and journalists who welcomed it with relief.

Follow the money

All eyes on pandemic, economy as Detroit automakers post results

Detroit’s automakers will report results this week, highlighting the damage the coronavirus pandemic wrought on the second quarter, but investors will be focused on what they say about current demand as infection rates spike in key truck markets like Texas and COVID-19’s ongoing impact on the U.S. economy.

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Will investors look past Amazon's COVID-19 e-commerce costs?

Investors’ penchant for prioritizing growth over profit at Amazon.com Inc will be put to the test on Thursday, when investors absorb the impact of second-quarter pandemic-related costs that could top $4 billion.

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Fed faces viral wave, mounting risks to recovery

In a fast-changing global pandemic, this was not the turn U.S. Federal Reserve officials hoped for in early June, when their forecasts showed guarded optimism for a sharpish early economic rebound and steady slow growth to follow.

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