BitGou: Monday Morning Briefing: The coronavirus can last 28 days on glass and currency, study finds

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Virus can last 28 days on glass and currency
The virus that causes COVID-19 can survive on banknotes, glass and stainless steel for up to 28 days, Australian researchers said on Monday. Findings from the study done by Australia’s national science agency appear to show that, in a very controlled environment, the virus remained infectious for longer than other studies have found. By comparison, Influenza A virus has been found to survive on surfaces for 17 days.

Reuters tracker shows that the number of confirmed infections and deaths from the virus worldwide.

China’s Qingdao orders city-wide testing
The Chinese city of Qingdao said it will conduct coronavirus tests for its entire population of more than 9 million after reporting new cases that appeared to be linked to a hospital treating imported infections. Daily COVID-19 infections in mainland China have fallen drastically since the early days of the outbreak, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan. China has reported no new domestically transmitted cases since early August, but it remains on high alert.

Delhi stops displaying notices at homes of patients
Delhi authorities have stopped putting notices outside the homes of people infected with coronavirus because this has amplified the social stigma associated with the disease and in turn caused others to hide their illness, officials said. Early on during the outbreak in the Indian capital, officials would paste a poster on the homes of people in quarantine after they had tested positive for the virus to make sure everyone in the neighborhood was careful.

Twitter flags Trump tweet for violating its rules
Twitter flagged a tweet by Donald Trump in which the U.S. president claimed he was immune to the coronavirus, saying it violated the social media platform’s rules about misleading information related to COVID-19. “A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know,” Trump said in the tweet.

Europe records 100,000 daily cases
Europe surpassed 100,000 daily reported COVID-19 cases, after countries such as Russia and the UK saw no respite in the mounting number of infections every day in the past five days. Cases throughout Europe have been steadily rising over the past week even as new infections in the worst-affected countries such as India and Brazil have shown signs of slowing down. The epicenter of the outbreak in the European region has moved to Britain, Russia, Spain and France which have reported at least over 10,000 cases each in the last three days.

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U.S.

President Trump will try to put his bout with COVID-19 behind him when he returns to the campaign trail on Monday, beginning a three-week sprint to the Nov. 3 election with a rally in the vital battleground state of Florida. The event at an airport in Sanford, Florida, will be Trump’s first campaign rally since he disclosed on Oct. 2 that he tested positive for COVID-19. Trump, who spent three days in the hospital for treatment, said on Sunday he was fully recovered and no longer infectious, but did not say directly whether he had tested negative for the virus.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate confirmation kicks off in earnest as Republicans seek to place her on the bench ahead of the presidential election next month in the face of blanket Democratic opposition. A four-day Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for the conservative appellate court judge, picked by President Trump, will begin with members and Barrett herself making opening statements.

In preparing for election night, some top U.S. television news executives see a cautionary tale in a notorious November evening two decades ago. After major networks projected Vice President Al Gore the winner in the crucial state of Florida, they pivoted in the wee hours to calling his Republican rival George W. Bush the next president. The margin was so slim, Gore conceded, then took it back an hour later. The election wouldn’t be decided for more than a month. The only loss that night was the networks’ credibility.

U.S. economists Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson won the 2020 Nobel Economics Prize for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. “The new auction formats are a beautiful example of how basic research can subsequently generate inventions that benefit society,” the academy added.

Microsoft said it had used a court order to take control of computers that were installing ransomware and other malicious software on local government networks and threatening to disrupt the November election. The maker of the Windows operating system said it seized a series of internet protocol addresses hosted by U.S. companies that had been directing activity on computers infected with Trickbot, one of the most common pieces of malware in the world.

Business

Exclusive: Goldman Sachs financial targets jeopardized as pandemic slows revamp

Goldman Sachs management is considering whether to scale back financial targets set earlier this year, as the coronavirus pandemic has hindered the bank’s business model revamp, analysts and sources inside the bank told Reuters.

4 min read

Bag Santa and the elves? A holiday hiring slump takes shape

When the pandemic blew a hole in the U.S. labor market last spring, the hope was for a quick return to normal. It’s clear that hasn’t happened, and with the critical holiday shopping season approaching workers face a new drag on their prospects. Companies appear to be bringing on fewer seasonal workers.

3 min read

Investment strategy based on reducing risk faces its own challenge

A fund trading strategy that tracks hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and often gets blamed for exacerbating market selloffs is facing a challenge from the policy response to the pandemic. But fund managers said they are adapting, and new money is flowing in.

7 min read

Cadillac, Buick help GM to first China sales growth in two years

General Motors said continued market recovery from the COVID-19 crisis helped its China vehicle sales grow 12% on year in July-September, marking the Detroit automaker's first Chinese quarterly sales growth in two years.

3 min read

Mallinckrodt files for bankruptcy protection amid U.S. opioid litigation

Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy protection, saddled with lawsuits alleging it fueled the U.S. opioid epidemic and after it lost a court battle to avoid paying higher rebates to state Medicaid programs for its top-selling drug.

2 min read