BitGou: Monday Morning Briefing: Pandemic preparedness panel slams collective failure to heed warnings

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

‘World in disorder’
A collective failure by political leaders to heed warnings and prepare for an infectious disease pandemic has transformed “a world at risk” to a “world in disorder,” according to a report on international epidemic preparedness. “Financial and political investments in preparedness have been insufficient, and we are all paying the price,” said the report by The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.

“It is not as if the world has lacked the opportunity to take these steps,” it added. “There have been numerous calls for action ... over the last decade, yet none has generated the changes needed.” The GPMB, co-convened by the World Bank and the World Health Organization, is chaired by former WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Trump holds rally indoors
President Trump held a Nevada campaign rally at an indoor venue on Sunday despite public health professionals’ warnings against such gatherings. People in the crowd were seated close together and many did not wear masks. The president’s campaign portrayed the rally at a large warehouse in Henderson as an opportunity for supporters to exercise their rights to peaceful assembly.

‘Reckless’ 30cm distancing rule
Experts described as dangerous and premature the Philippines’ decision to cut the social distancing minimum to 30 centimeters on public transport, as the country saw another daily record in new deaths. Reducing gaps between passengers incrementally to a third of the 1 meter minimum could backfire, experts and medical professionals warned, and prolong a first wave of infections that the Philippines has been battling since March.

Berlusconi’s ‘dangerous’ COVID battle
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi left hospital after overcoming the coronavirus, saying he had survived “the most dangerous challenge” of his life. “I said to myself, with satisfaction, ‘You have got away with it again’,” a smiling Berlusconi told reporters at the gates of Milan’s San Raffaele hospital, where he was admitted on Sept. 3 after testing positive.

Marseille soccer celebrations condemned
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin criticised Olympique Marseille’s fans for celebrating en masse on the streets of the city after Marseille beat Paris Saint Germain, given the risks from COVID-19. “One can only condemn the images that we are seeing,” Darmanin told LCI television, when shown TV footage of hordes of supporters partying in close proximity, many without masks.

From Breakingviews - Corona Capital: EDF woe, Metro bid, Air France-KLM.
French electricity giant EDF may need more capital, and Metro’s largest shareholder makes a bargain swoop for more shares in the German wholesaler. Catch up with the latest pandemic-related insights from Breakingviews.

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Wildfires

A devastated West Coast. While more than two dozen major blazes continued to devastate California, the neighboring state of Oregon bore the latest brunt of wildfires plaguing much of the western United States over the past week. An unprecedented spate of fierce, wind-driven wildfires in Oregon have all but destroyed five small towns, leaving a potentially high death toll in their wake, the governor said on Wednesday, as initial casualty reports began to surface.

'All gone': Search-and-rescue teams, with dogs in tow, were deployed across the blackened ruins of southern Oregon towns on Sunday as smoldering wildfires still ravaged U.S. Pacific Coast states after causing widespread destruction. Tracy Koa, a high school teacher, returned to Talent, Oregon, on Saturday after evacuating with her partner, Dave Tanksle, and 13-year-old daughter to find her house and neighborhood reduced to heaps of ash and rubble.

In Brazil, it’s not just the Amazon that’s burning. The world’s largest wetland is on fire too. A fire has been burning since mid-July in the remote wetlands of west-central Brazil, leaving in its wake a vast charred desolation bigger than New York City. A team of veterinarians, biologists and local guides arrived in late August to prowl the bumpy dirt road known as the Trans-Pantanal Highway in pickup trucks, looking to save what injured animals they could.

World

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will try to persuade rebellious lawmakers in his party to vote on Monday for a bill that would break international law by breaching parts of the Brexit divorce deal and that Brussels says will wreck trade talks.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, a loyal aide to outgoing prime minister Shinzo Abe, won a landslide victory in a ruling party leadership election on Monday, paving the way for Japan’s first change of leader in nearly eight years.

Business

Retirements, layoffs, labor force flight may leave scars on U.S economy

Six months into the pandemic, evidence of longer-term damage to the U.S. labor market is emerging, according to separate analyses of detailed monthly jobs data by labor economists and Reuters. Eight years ago, as the United States struggled through the aftermath of a deep recession, the Federal Reserve set an unemployment rate it felt would be a good benchmark to show the economy was getting back to normal.

11 min read

Wall Street fundraisers turn into wallflowers during 2020 U.S. election

Wealthy bigwigs who were once super-fundraisers now find themselves largely sidelined ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. The financial industry has so far donated $83 million to the 2020 presidential campaigns of President Trump and Joe Biden, according to Center for Responsive Politics data through July 31.

6 min read

Tech

Tesla investors should be watching for M&A for S&P inclusion

Tesla investors were disappointed after the company was snubbed in the S&P 500's latest round of inclusions, but the company's entry could still happen at any time and a merger by others in the benchmark index might help.

4 min read

ByteDance picks Oracle as partner to try to save TikTok U.S.: sources

Oracle beat Microsoft in the battle for the U.S. arm of TikTok with a deal structured as a partnership rather than an outright sale to try to navigate geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington, people familiar with the matter said.

6 min read