The coronavirus lockdown has virtually halted international travel and tourism, hitting airlines and other travel companies, aerospace and auto manufacturers and oil companies hard.
As these businesses adjust to dramatically reduced revenue projections, job losses are starting to mount alarmingly. More than 40,000 redundancies have already been announced across these sectors, with more than 10,000 likely to be in the UK.
Rolls-RoyceThe jet-engine manufacturer has confirmed that3,000 job cuts, of a planned 9,000 worldwide, will be made in the UK. Rolls-Royce will make the first round of redundancies through a voluntary programme, with about 1,500 posts being lost at its headquarters in Derby, as well as 700 redundancies in Inchinnan, nearGlasgow, another 200 at its Barnoldswick site in Lancashire and 175 in Solihull, Warwickshire.
BentleyThe luxury carmaker intends toshrink its workforce by almost a quarter, slashing 1,000 roles through a voluntary redundancy scheme. The majority of Bentleys 4,200 workers are based in Crewe, Cheshire.
Aston Martin LagondaThe Warwickshire-based luxury car manufacturer has alsoannounced 500 redundancies.
BPThe oil company plans to make10,000 people redundant worldwide, including an estimated 2,000 in the UK, by the end of the year. The BP chief executive, Bernard Looney, said the majority of people affected would be those in office-based jobs, including at the most senior levels. BP said it would reduce the number of group leaders by a third, and protect the frontline of the company, in its operations.
British AirwaysThe UK flag carrier is holding consultations tomake up to 12,000 of its staff redundant, a reduction of one in four jobs at the airline. BA intends to cut roles among its cabin crew, pilots and ground staff, while significantly reducing its operations at Gatwick airport.
Virgin Atlantic Richard Bransons airline is tocutmore than 3,000 jobs, more than a third of its workforce, and will shut its operations at Gatwick.
EasyJetThe airline has announced plans to cut 4,500 employees, or 30% of its workforce.
RyanairThe Irish airline intends to slash 3,000 roles and reduce staff pay by up to a fifth.
P&O FerriesThe shipping firm intends to cut more than a quarter of its workforce,a loss of 1,100 jobs. The company, which operates passenger ferries between Dover and Calais, and across the Irish Sea, as well as Hull to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, will initially offer employees voluntary redundancy.
CentricaThe owner of British Gas is to slash 5,000 jobs, saying it was looking to cut costs by simplifying its business structure. The company is removing three layers of management, with more than half of the job losses falling on leadership roles, including half its 40-strong senior team.
Johnson MattheyA major supplier of material for catalytic converters in cars, Johnson Matthey announced plans to make 2,500 redundancies worldwide, or 17% of its total workforce. The group said it was the result of the pandemic and the uncertain outlook for the car industry.
Heathrow AirportVoluntary redundancy has been offered to all of its 7,000 direct employees after coronavirus wiped out its passenger traffic.
ANAHEIM (CBSLA) An Anaheim firefighter has been put on a ventilator after facing complications from the coronavirus.
Six other Anaheim Fire and Rescue members have also tested positive. The first case among the firefighters is believed to have originated on May 27, but the source of their infections is still unclear.
Officials did not reveal the names of the two stations that were impacted to protect the privacy of those impacted.
Four firefighters have recovered and are expected to return to work in a few days, one is isolating at home and doing well and two are hospitalized.
We believe the first original case was related to exposure on a call serving our community, said Anaheim City Spokesperson Mike Lyster.That is just the nature of coronavirus and risk of exposure that we might all encounter in our daily lives.
The department has more than 200 firefighters and paramedics.
Our stations are regularly disinfected. We go through health screening checks for our firefighters and paramedics up to three times a day, Lystersaid.
The Anaheim Fire and Rescue department strongly encourages the community to continue to wear masks and practice physical distancing.
To date, Orange County has reported a total of 8,269 cumulative coronavirus cases and 217 deaths.
Emmanuel Macron has announced that France is open and back in business.
In his fourth televised address to the nation since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the French president said the country was turning the page on the first act of the crisis that we have gone through.
The fight against the epidemic is not over, but I am happy that we have won this first battle against the virus, he said.
Macron opened by saying the whole of France, except for the overseas departments of Mayotte and French Guiana, were turning green, meaning restaurants, bars and cafes in the Paris area can now fully open, and that all schoolchildren except for those in lyces (upper high schools) will be expected to return to class from next Monday.
With the academic year due to end for the two-month summer holiday at the beginning of July, the announcement that the return to class is obligatory has come as a surprise to many parents and headteachers in areas where secondary school classes are currently closed.
Macron also announced Frances Schengen borders would be open as from Monday and its non-EU borders from 1 July. UK and Spanish visitors to France will be however asked to self-quarantine.
We can be proud of what we have done in our country. Of course this challenge has also revealed weaknesses, fragilities, our dependence on other continents to procure certain products, our cumbersome organisation, our social and territorial inequalities I would like us to learn all the lessons from what we have been through, Macron said during the 20-minute address.
He said the country was facing an economic crisis, but stated while coronavirus easing measures had cost the country 500bn, there would be no tax rises. He suggested plans for Frances economic reconstruction would include encouraging firms to relocate back to France and plans for economic independence that he would announce next month.
At EU level, the president called for the consolidation of an economically independent Europe to take on the US and China.
Macron made no direct reference to the widespread but largely peaceful anti-racism and anti-police violence protests in France at the weekend, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in America, but said racism, anti-semitism and discrimination are unacceptable.
We are a nation where everyone, whatever their origins or religion, has their place our battle [against discrimination] must continue and intensify, he said.
However, he warned there would be no rewriting of French history.
I will be very clear tonight, compatriots. The republic will not erase any name, any trace of its history. It will forget none of its artworks. It will tear down no statues, Macron said.
He also issued a clear message of support for the police forces, saying they take daily risks and deserve the support of those in power and the gratitude of the nation.
The address received a mixed response in the French media. Librations front page headline read: Macron congratulates Macron, while Le Monde similarly accused Macron of giving himself a certificate of satisfaction over his handling of the crisis. The centre-right paper Le Figaro chose to lead on Macron calling the French to return fully to work.
Since the pandemic began, sales of vitamin D and other supplements promoted for immune health have soared. But preliminary studies of vitamin D and Covid-19 have yielded mixed results.
At the University of Chicago Medicine, which serves a largely black and Hispanic population on the South Side of Chicago, researchers reviewed the medical records of more than 4,300 patients, many of them health care workers, who were tested for Covid-19 in March and early April.
After controlling for factors that can influence vitamin D levels, like age, race and chronic medical conditions, they found that people who were vitamin D deficient before the pandemic began were 77 percent more likely to test positive for Covid-19 compared to people who had normal levels.
Dr. David Meltzer, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and the lead author of the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, cautioned that the findings were correlational and did not prove causation. He said he and his colleagues were recruiting local paramedics, police officers and other emergency workers for a randomized trial that will test whether taking low to moderate doses of vitamin D daily has an impact on their risk of developing Covid-19 or the severity of their symptoms. Dr. Meltzer suspects that people taking vitamin D who contract the virus will have fewer symptoms of Covid-19 because the immune system will be less likely to have an exaggerated inflammatory response.
I think you can learn a lot from observational studies, said Dr. Meltzer, who is chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. But in the end we desperately need randomized trials to determine as rapidly as we can if theres a real effect here.
In Britain people from minority ethnic groups, such as those with African or South Asian ancestry, make up a third of all confirmed cases of Covid-19 in critical care, even though they account for just 14 percent of the population. They also experience higher levels of poverty, chronic diseases and vitamin D deficiencies. At least one medical group, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, has urged all British health care workers from minority backgrounds to consider taking vitamin D supplements as a precaution.
But two recent studies using data from the U.K. Biobank, a long running project that has tracked the health of a half million people aged 40 to 69, cast doubt on the links between vitamin D and Covid-19. One group of researchers found that participants who recently tested positive for coronavirus were more likely to have had very low or deficient levels of vitamin D compared to other participants. But the association disappeared after the results were adjusted for factors like age, race, obesity and socioeconomic status.
The S&P 500 was volatileMonday as investors grappled with signs of a spike in coronavirus cases.
Here's what five experts say investors should watch.
Darrell Cronk, CIO for wealth and investment management at Wells Fargo, is keeping an eye on key levels for the S&P 500.
"I think we did get a little bit overextended. We were probably almost 75% into a retracement from the March 23 lows which is extremely high on a retracement. We did break the short-term 20-day moving average at the end of last week. We will probably go through the 200-day moving average, which is the support level. And if we get down to around 2,910, that's the 50-day moving average. So, you would have kind of the trifecta of breaking the 20-day, the 200-day and the 50-day simultaneously, which would put some more downside probably to the equity markets in the near term."
Kevin Giddis, chief fixed income strategist at Raymond James, said the Treasury market could be sending a signal to equity investors.
"Two distinct events last week that we've talked about a lot one was the dovish Fed and their call for not even thinking about raising rates until 2023, and the rise in Covid-19 cases as the U.S. economy reopened. One thing I will point out, while the equity volatility was quite high, bond volatility went down last week, and I think that is the Treasury market in particular saying, 'Hey, this recovery is going to take longer than people think.' It also is a credit to the Fed and the Treasury for what they did back in March, which settled the credit markets down."
Sarat Sethi, managing partner at Douglas C. Lane & Associates, is picking out some beaten-down stocks.
"I do like some of the companies out there Chevron, General Motors are companies that we're adding to, they're down over 20% for the year. This is going to be more about the duration. These companies are going to be solvent, they're going to be fine and I would add to them. I would add to some of the large-cap banks JPMorgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley. And then on sell-offs like we get, the high-quality companies that we kind of added to in the early part of the sell-off, you can go to the Lowe's of the world, the Disneys of the world the companies that have the balance sheets and that are going to get through these fits and starts."
David Gerstenhaber, CIO of Acorn Advisory Capital, is concerned over how expensive stocks have become.
"I think valuations are unsustainable at current levels. I think the economy will disappoint in the fall particularly as the government stimulus programs begin to wind down. I think valuations are excessive and, in particular, I think that we will see a little surge in actual activity now as cabin fever gets people out. But, I think that's short term in nature and over the next couple of months, I think you'll see more disappointing data that the market will have to come to terms with."
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, sees the influx of retail investors as a positive.
"It is a good thing to have more retail participation in this market. It's a good thing that it be based on transparency and information. And what the retail sector got absolutely right is your rotation rate. They were ahead of everybody else, they understood that you would have a rotation from stay-at-home to reopening stocks, from leaders to laggards, and they did very well up to last week."
Disclaimer
Doug Fraser, Cape Cod Times Published 10:05 a.m. ET June 15, 2020 | Updated 10:53 a.m. ET June 15, 2020
Pressure to create a coronavirus vaccine is increasing by the day, but for a safe vaccine to enter the market, it takes time. USA TODAY
EAST FALMOUTH For 450 million years, horseshoe crabs have scuttled along the ocean floor, coming ashore to lay eggs.
You need pretty strong defenses to survive mass extinctions and the oversized predators that evolved before man came on the scene. While its helmeted body certainly protected it, the horseshoe crab, living in a bacterial soup, had another defense blood that quickly clotted to stop infection from cuts and loss of limbs.
Just as it is for this primordial animal, bacteria is all around us.
Its not dangerous until it crosses the blood wall, said Brett Hoffmeister, limulous amebocyte lysate (LAL) production manager for Associates of Cape Cod in East Falmouth. If it gets into the blood or spinal fluid, you have a problem.
Because of its quick and detectable response to bacteria, horseshoe crab blood is used in testing anything that can be surgically implanted, injected or swallowed as medication. That includes hip replacements, heart stents, pharmaceuticals, intravenous solutions and vaccines such as the annual flu vaccine, and the coronavirus vaccines now in development with potentially worldwide distribution.
While other tests exist like synthetic LAL and a human blood test, LAL bacterial endotoxin testing is the gold standard, Hoffmeister said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar talked about a timeline for a COVID-19 vaccine. USA TODAY
The LAL test was first developed in Falmouth by Jack Levin and Frederik Bang of Massachusetts Biological Laboratory. Associates of Cape Cod, the first company licensed to manufacture it, was founded in 1974 by Stanley Watson, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution senior scientist who investigated the horseshoe crab extract as a way to measure bacterial biomass in seawater.
The company now has over 200 employees and offices worldwide, Hoffmeister said. There are only four manufacturers in the U.S.
Hoffmeister said his company doesnt anticipate a very big increase in demand for LAL to test and manufacture new vaccines. Very little is needed to test a sample of the vaccine, and it would take only a day of production to manufacture enough to assure the purity of even an estimated five billion doses, he said.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was concern over the fate of the horseshoe crab. The crabs numbers appeared to drop to the point where birders and national bird conservation organizations like the National Audubon Society expressed alarm over a lack of horseshoe crab eggs, a primary food for endangered shorebird species like red knot along their migratory route.
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Many were concerned about a big increase in harvests by a bait fishery in which the crabs were used to attract conch, eels and other species to traps. Others worried about the number of crabs dying from handling and bleeding in the biomedical industry.
Daily limits and bans on bait fishing in critical horseshoe crab areas like Delaware Bay and in Massachusetts and other spots along the eastern shore helped bring that fishery under control. The bait harvest peaked in 1999 at 2.6 million crabs and has remained under 1 million crabs since 2003, according to a 2019 stock assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
In that 2019 assessment, the commission estimated a 15% mortality for the biomedical field. Most of the horseshoe crab blood is in the gills, and LAL technicians only use a small portion contained in sinus sack. The animal is returned to the water within 24 hours, Hoffmeister said. Total estimated mortality for the nearly 500,000 crabs used exclusively for the biomedical industry in 2017 was 72,674 animals. Over 990,000 were caught and killed in the bait fishery that year, according to commission data.
Derek Perry, an invertebrate fisheries biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said that other fisheries dwarf the impact of the biomedical industry.
Only about half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine. Another 31% simply aren't sure, while 1 in 5 say they'd refuse. That's according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (May 27) AP Domestic
In the (ASMFC) stock assessment, they say that discard mortality from the mobile gear fleet (fish trawlers and shellfish draggers) could be higher than the biomedical and bait fish combined, he said.
Although they havent been able to determine what constitutes a healthy horseshoe crab population, or a sustainable amount to harvest, commission officials said that the majority of indices indicate these prehistoric survivors appear headed in the right direction.
Perry pointed out that trawl surveys along the East Coast, with the exception of the New York area, were all showing increased horseshoe crab abundance.
Our trawl survey, with a 40 year history, had the highest data point in years this year, so our population seems to be increasing, Perry said.
His agency sends guidelines to Associates of Cape Cod on how to safely handle crabs to reduce mortality, and they are in the East Falmouth facility once a month during the season to assess the health and handling of the crabs.
Follow Doug Fraser on Twitter: @dougfrasercct.
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By Conrad Quilty-Harper and Layal Liverpool
Du Yang/China News Service via Getty Images
New coronavirus outbreak linked to market in Beijing
36 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in Chinas capital Beijing today, bringing the total for the past four days to 79. Lockdown restrictions in Beijing were eased in May, and the city had reported no new confirmed cases except for citizens returning from other countries for 55 days before the new cases were detected. The new cluster of cases are thought to be linked to the citys largest seafood and vegetable market, which has now been closed. Chinese authorities are warning citizens against travel to the capital and some lockdown restrictions have been reimposed in parts of the city.
Other coronavirus news
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A study suggesting that reducing physical distancing from two metres to one metre only minimally increases coronavirus infection risk from 1.3 to 2.6 per cent is being criticised by scientists. The study, which was funded by the World Health Organization (WHO), didnt consider how long people were exposed for and may have oversimplified the way infection risk changes with increasing physical distance, public health and statistics researchers told The Guardian.
The UK government will review the current two-metre social distancing recommendation in coming weeks, a spokesperson for UK prime minister Boris Johnson told journalists today. The governments chief medical adviser Chris Whitty previously said the two-metre rule would carry on for as long as the epidemic continues.
Self-reported anxiety levels in the UK have fallen slightly after they went up following the introduction of lockdown in March, although reported anxiety levels are still higher than this time last year, according to a survey of 6430 people aged 16 and over by the Office for National Statistics. 37 per cent of people reported experiencing high levels of anxiety between 30 April and 10 May. This is compared to 50 per cent of people between 20 and 30 March, the period of time when the UKs lockdown was introduced, and 19 per cent in the last three months of 2019.
Alabama, Florida and South Carolina reported record numbers of daily new coronavirus cases on 13 June for the third day running. On the same day, Oklahoma reported its highest number of coronavirus cases for the second day in a row. Daily new cases are also rising in Louisiana. More than a dozen US states have seen a surge in covid-19 cases in recent weeks.
The ban against travel to the US from the UK is unlikely to be lifted in the next few months, US government health adviser Anthony Fauci told The Telegraph in an interview last month. He warned UK travellers not to plan summer trips to the US this year and said the travel ban may need to stay in place until a coronavirus vaccine is available. UK travellers hoping to visit other parts of Europe this year also face a variety of restrictions and quarantine measures.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 434,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.9 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Worldwide cases approach 8 million: The coronaviruss spread continues as the world rapidly approaches the grim threshold of half a million confirmed deaths, with 434,000 reported as of 15 June. However, researchers warn that this is still only the start of the pandemic.
Resuming international travel: Much of the world is starting to open up again, with many countries easing or planning to ease coronavirus travel restrictions. But would-be travellers face an uncertain and fast-changing situation.
Fighting multiple epidemics: A new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus disease has emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more than 1200 kilometres to the west of an earlier outbreak that has been spreading in the country since 2018. At the same time, the DRC is contending with the worlds largest measles outbreak and the spread of the coronavirus.
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Covid-19 Fact Checkers, a podcast from Vice, pairs up young people with experts who can answer their questions relating to the pandemic. A recent episode focused on why people in the UK from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are being disproportionately affected by covid-19.
Can You Save The World? is a coronavirus social distancing game, where the player travels through a city and gains points for saving lives by practising social distancing correctly and collecting masks.
What coronavirus looks like in every country on Earth is a 28-minute film from Channel 4 News showing what daily life looks like in every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Coronavirus, Explained on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the on-going coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.
Coronavirus: The science of a pandemic: As the death toll from covid-19 rises, discover how researchers around the world are racing to understand the virus and prevent future outbreaks in our free online panel discussion.
A day in the life of coronavirus Britain is an uplifting Channel 4 documentary shot over 24 hours which shows how the citizens of Britain are coping under lockdown.
New Scientist Weekly features updates and analysis on the latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic. Our podcast sees expert journalists from the magazine discuss the biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week from technology and space, to health and the environment.
The Rules of Contagion is about the new science of contagion and the surprising ways it shapes our lives and behaviour. The author, Adam Kucharski, is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in the book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.
Coronavirus trajectory tracker explained, a video by John Burn-Murdoch for the Financial Times, uses data visualisation to explain the daily graphs that show how coronavirus cases and deaths are growing around the world.
Contagion: The BBC Four Pandemic is a sober documentary about the progression of a hypothetical pandemic which the BBC simulated in 2017. Fronted by science journalist and TV presenter Hannah Fry, and made with the support of some of the countrys best epidemiologists and mathematical modelers, its very relevant to todays covid-19 pandemic.
Covid-19 death rates twice as high in Englands most deprived areas
The most deprived areas in England and Wales have been hit twice as hard by the coronavirus outbreak compared to the wealthiest areas, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests. After adjusting for differences in age, there were 128 deaths involving covid-19 per 100,000 people in the most deprived areas of England in March, April and May, compared to 60 deaths per 100,000 in the nations least deprived areas. In Wales, during the same time period, the death rate in the most deprived areas was 110 per 100,000 people compared to 58 per 100,000 people in the least deprived parts of the nation.
The estimated number of people who had coronavirus in England is continuing to fall, according to provisional results from a random swab testing survey by the ONS. The survey estimates that there were 33,000 infections outside of hospitals and care homes in England between 25 May and 7 June, down from 53,000 the previous week.
Other coronavirus news
Three major airlines, British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet, have launched a legal challenge against the UK governments coronavirus quarantine rules, which they claim will devastate tourism and the economy. The new rules, which came into effect on 8 June, require passengers arriving in the UK to self-isolate for 14 days.
Hospital morgues in India have reached capacity, with some bodies now being kept on thick ice slabs as summer temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius. There have been more than 8400 deaths from covid-19 recorded in India so far. To date, over 290,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the country. India has now overtaken the UK to become the nation with the fourth-highest number of confirmed cases worldwide, after the US, Brazil and Russia.
Millions more children are at risk of being pushed into child labour due to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis, the United Nations childrens agency Unicef warned in a report released today. The crisis could also force children who are already working to put in longer hours under worsening conditions, says the report.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 422,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.5 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Coronavirus spread in England: The south west of England has the highest rate of coronavirus spread in the UK, with an R number estimated to be in the range of 0.8 to 1.1.
Neil Hall/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Covid-19 causes huge disruption to NHS cancer care, surgeries and A&E
The National Health Service in England has revealed how much the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted its services. The number of people in England being assessed by a cancer specialist fell 60 per cent in April to 79,500, compared to nearly 200,000 in the same month last year. The number of people treated for cancer dropped to 10,800 in April, 20 per cent fewer than 2019. NHS England said the falls are partly due to people not seeking medical treatment due to concern over covid-19, but hospitals also had to delay or stop some treatments following a surge of coronavirus cases. To make up for this, NHS England has set up covid-free wings in some hospitals and chemo-buses which can travel to patients to provide chemotherapy.
The number of routine operations, which includes hip and knee replacements, cataracts and hernia surgeries, fell to 41,000 in April, down from 280,000 in the same month last year. Data from accident and emergency services show 1.26 million people sought treatment in May, well below the 2 million in May 2019.
Other coronavirus news
Englands coronavirus contact tracing scheme was unable to reach a third of the people who tested positive for the virus in its first week of operation, new figures have revealed. The first statistics for the NHS Test and Trace system, released today, show it was able to contact 5407 of 8117 people who tested positive between 28 May and 3 June, and was unable to contact the remaining 33 per cent. The people who did respond disclosed an average of around six close contacts, or 31,794 in total, and the contact tracers managed to reach around 85 per cent of these.
Ashish Jha, the head of Harvards Global Health Institute, said that the total death toll in the US could pass 200,000 by September even if the number of new daily deaths remains flat. And thats just through September. The pandemic wont be over in September, he told CNN. More than 113,000 people have died from coronavirus in the US so far.
The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating in African countries, World Health Organization Africa regional director Matshidiso Moeti has said. Community transmission is occurring in more than half of Africas 54 countries, and cases have doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 in the last 18 days, compared to the 98 days it took to reach 100,000 cases. African countries have reported a total of 5000 deaths to date, with 10 countries, including South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria, accounting for three quarters of the total cases.
The launch of the NHSX covid-19 contact tracing app across the rest of England has been delayed further after the apps developers had difficulty getting Bluetooth radio technology to measure distances effectively. An early version of the app is being trialled on the Isle of Wight and a second version was due to be tested on Tuesday, but this has now been postponed. The NHSX software differs from contact tracing app technology based on a framework developed by Apple and Google that is being used in many other countries. The BBC reports that ministers in the UK are now considering adopting this approach instead.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 417,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.4 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Coronavirus was introduced to the UK by travellers from mostly Spain, France and Italy
The coronavirus was introduced and spread throughout the UK by 1356 people who travelled here mostly from European countries, according to a preliminary study by researchers in the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed. The researchers analysed genetic sequences from 20,000 coronavirus cases in the UK and used this to build a family tree. This revealed the lineage of the different infections and allowed the team to trace their origins. They estimate that 34 per cent of these original coronavirus cases were people who arrived in the UK from Spain, 29 per cent from France and 14 per cent from Italy. The researchers estimate that most introductions of the virus to the UK happened in March.
Other coronavirus developments
The number of people on waiting lists for NHS treatment in England could more than double to 9.8 million by the end of the year, according to a letter sent to UK prime minister Boris Johnson today from the NHS Confederation, a membership body that represents people who commission or provide NHS services. Before the pandemic, 4.4 million people were waiting for treatments, such as hernia repair, cataract removal or hip or knee replacement.
Schools in England will struggle to reopen in September, said Michael Wilshaw, the former head of Ofsted, a government body responsible for inspecting schools. He said, If youre going to insist on social distancing and a maximum of 15 in a class, we will need double the amount of space, we will need double the amount of teachers and weve got to make sure we have that.
24 per cent of people in the UK said they were experiencing at least one mental health problem in April this year, according to a survey by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank. This is more than double the predicted level compared to pre-pandemic data collected between 2017 and 2019. Women and young people reported the largest declines in their mental health, according to the IFS.
Use of face coverings by the public, when combined with physical distancing or periods of lockdown, may provide an acceptable way of reopening economic activity while managing the spread of coronavirus, suggests a modelling study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 412,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.2 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
New centre of the pandemic: Coronavirus cases are rising sharply in South America, made worse by inequality, reports Luke Taylor from Bogota, Colombia.
Coronavirus and diet: Plenty of diets offer to boost your immune system to help protect you from covid-19, but there isnt any evidence they are true, writes James Wong.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
Highest daily jump in worldwide coronavirus cases so far
The highest daily increase in worldwide coronavirus cases yet was recorded on Sunday, with 136,000 new cases confirmed, World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists yesterday. Although the situation in Europe is improving, globally it is worsening, he said. Almost 75 per cent of the cases confirmed on 7 June were from only 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia, The Guardian reports.
Other coronavirus developments
Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHOs emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, was today criticised by doctors and infectious disease researchers for saying on Monday that it is very rare for people to have the coronavirus without symptoms. Van Kerkhove clarified her statement today, during a live Q&A on social media, saying that anywhere between 6 and 41 per cent of the population may be infected but not have symptoms.
Primary school pupils in England will no longer be expected to return to school before the end of the summer term, the UK government has said. Primary schools in England reopened on 1 June to reception, year 1 and year 6 pupils and the governments original plan was for all remaining pupils to return for the last month of term before the summer holidays start on 22 July. Head teachers previously warned that it wouldnt be possible for school pupils to practice social distancing in classrooms.
A Public Health England coronavirus testing survey is to track the prevalence of coronavirus among those who do return to school and investigate how much children spread the virus. Teachers and pupils in up to 100 schools will soon receive coronavirus swab and antibody tests.
Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificates for 44,869 people in England and Wales between the weeks ending 27 March and 29 May, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals. The number of deaths recorded as involving covid-19 in the week ending 29 May was 1822, down from the most recent peak of 8758 in the week ending 17 April. The total number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 29 May was 9824, which is 20 per cent higher than would be expected based on the five-year average.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 407,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.1 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Covid-19 in pregnancy: 56 per cent of pregnant women with covid-19 are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, a study has revealed.
Shielding vulnerable people: On 31 May, the UK government announced that so-called shielders in England and Wales could now leave their homes. But what is the evidence behind the idea of shielding vulnerable people, and is it really safe for this to now stop?
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Lockdowns prevented at least 3.1 million covid-19 deaths in Europe
An estimated 3.1 million deaths due to covid-19 were prevented by lockdowns and other coronavirus social distancing measures across 11 countries in Europe including the UK, according to a modelling study published in Nature. 470,000 deaths were averted in the UK alone, the researchers who did the study told the Guardian.
The team analysed data on reported coronavirus deaths from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK, up until 4 May. They concluded that for all 11 countries, interventions were effective enough to drive the R number a measure of how quickly the virus is spreading to below 1. The researchers also estimate that the lockdown introduced in the UK on 23 March reduced the countrys R number from 3.8 to 0.63 between the end of March and the start of May. Overall, the study estimates that between 12 and 15 million people across all 11 countries had the coronavirus by 4 May, about 3 to 4 per cent of their combined populations.
In the US, an estimated 60 million coronavirus infections were prevented by stay-at-home orders and other coronavirus restrictions, according to a seperate modelling study. It estimated that 530 million infections were prevented across the US, China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and France, with 285 million estimated to have been prevented in China alone.
Other coronavirus developments
New Zealand has no active coronavirus cases as of today and almost all coronavirus restrictions in the country will be lifted from Tuesday. Contact tracing will continue to be important as new cases may still emerge, New Zealands prime minister Jacinda Ardern told journalists today.
400,000 people are expected to return to work in New York City today in construction, manufacturing and retail. About 500 new confirmed coronavirus cases are reported daily in the city, down from a peak of almost 19,000 daily cases in the first two weeks of April. State and city officials say the number is low enough for contact tracers to be able to track every person who has been in contact with people confirmed to have coronavirus.
People should wear face coverings in public settings including supermarkets, offices, schools, on public transport and at any social or mass gatherings, according to an update of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on 5 June. The WHO also recommends that people wear face coverings if they are living in cramped conditions, particularly in refugee camps and slums.
Coronavirus deaths
The worldwide death toll has passed 409,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Lack of UK testing data: The UK government will not say when it will resume reporting the number of people outside of hospitals and care homes being tested for covid-19, after more than a fortnight of suspending publication because of double-counting.
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Estimated covid-19 infections have fallen in England
The estimated number of people who have had covid-19 in England has fallen in May, according to provisional results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics. In the last two weeks of May, only 1 in 1000, or 0.1 per cent of people in England, were estimated to have had covid-19 between 26 April and 8 May that number was almost 2.5 times higher. The survey, which didnt include people in hospitals or care homes and was conducted before additional restrictions were eased in England on 1 June, also found that people who worked outside the home had 3.5 times higher estimated covid-19 rates than those who worked from home.
Other coronavirus developments
The R number for the UK remains at the same level as last week, between 0.7 and 0.9. According to the governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the figure is slightly higher in England between 0.7 and 1. It is expected that any impact of recent lockdown relaxation will start to be seen on the R, a measure of how quickly the virus is spreading, in the coming week.
A British Heart Foundation survey of people in the UK with heart and circulatory diseases found that half of them say they have found it harder to get medical treatment since the coronavirus pandemic began. 48 per cent of those people cited a lack of available in-person appointments and 41 per cent said theyd had to postpone or cancel a planned test, surgery or procedure. Individuals concerns about covid-19s impact on the health service also played a role 42 per cent of those surveyed said they didnt want to put extra pressure on the NHS, and 27 per cent said they were concerned about the risk of getting covid-19 by going to a hospital or clinic. The poll surveyed 11,300 adults between 5 and 13 May, 1484 of whom have or have previously had a heart or circulatory condition.
The Lancet retracted a study that found the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine may be harmful in covid-19 patients, after three of the authors said they can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources. The data originated from US-based health analytics company Surgisphere and came under scrutiny earlier this week.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for face coverings to be worn in all areas where social distancing isnt possible. This follows the governments announcement yesterday that face coverings will be mandatory on public transport in England from 15 June. THE BMA also suggested that the public should adopt face coverings now, rather than wait until the measures become compulsory.
Coronavirus numbers
The worldwide death toll has passed 391,000. The number of confirmed cases is more than 6.6 million, according to the map and dashboard from Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases will be much higher.
Social bubbles: Socialising indoors with more than one household in social bubbles during the covid-19 crisis looks unlikely to be allowed any time soon in the UK, judging from the governments scientific advisers and new modelling.
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Every day brings a new story about campus leaders making the decision to physically open for business this fall and sharing the extensive mitigation plans being put in place to manage the health and safety concerns presented by the COVID-19 crisis. A number of those efforts will rely on changing student behavior in significant ways. And that presents some challenges.
Ive spent a fair amount of time throughout my career trying to figure out how to nudge students in one direction or another. Rounding up participants for an orientation activity. Getting students to sign up for appointments with their adviser well ahead of registration. Pushing them to exit a residence hall while an alarm blares over their heads. Encouraging them to walk away from a fraternity party where drinks are being spiked with sedatives. Occasionally Ive been successful. About as often, I havent.
I have, though, learned things along the way, and the most useful thing Ive learned is this: information is not adequate to elicit behavioral change. Its useful, and there may even be students who, upon hearing a speech or reading an email or viewing a poster on a residence hall bulletin board, make smarter choices for the coming weekend. Its why we keep plugging away, providing that information in various forms. Its why we employ health and wellness educators, alcohol and other drug education specialists, sexual violence prevention advisers, and others charged with delivering the best information available. But information alone doesnt change behavior. If it did, people wouldnt smoke. They would not binge-eat Crunchy Flaming Cheetos. They would visit the career center in their first year on campus.
But all the visually interesting posters and all the visiting speakers in the world are not enough to guarantee successful change. Ask any student health services director for statistics on the number of sexually transmitted diseases they treat or how many unwanted pregnancies they see, and youll have all the proof you need that just knowing how to keep themselves safe is not enough for students to actually do it.
Add to this the limited time horizon that most traditional-aged college students have. Even though college is, in many ways, designed exactly to propel a student into the future, the students Ive worked with are so much better at living in the present. This is not a criticism. In fact, I envy them. I wish I was as skilled at living in the moment. Maybe I would be if my moments were as much fun as theirs.
Lessons From the Good Times
What I recognize and have often reminded myself is that much of what I have seen and responded to as a dean of students is the result of brain development. Students are rarely dumb. They are, however, often young, and the part of their brain that supports clear judgment and mature behavior -- that all-important prefrontal cortex -- is still a work in progress. Some are further along than others, of course, but Ive made peace with the fact that students are often going to do things that I, a middle-aged person, find stunningly stupid. So in many years of interacting with students, especially while serving in a role that often has to interrogate the reasoning of a student in trouble, Ive learned a few things.
Ive learned to believe in the developmental power of redundancy. I dont know who first said that, but I heard the phrase in graduate school and have clung to it ever since. When people hear a message multiple times, from multiple sources, the message starts to sink in. It can happen slowly, or arrive as a seemingly explosive epiphany that has, in truth, been building up for some time, waiting for a switch to be thrown. Either way, the ultimate result is positive.
Ive learned that students, like most of us, are unaware of just how much power they have to change themselves and their behavior. Once, I was sitting at the table in my office across from a student who was in trouble for about the fifth time. He explained in great detail how the fates were stacked against him, how the universe seemed to have singled him out to be caught in various infractions by residence life staff or public safety staff -- both of which, he said, were determined to write up every student they could. He wasnt, he assured me, a bad person.
I agreed but told him that a few weeks hence, about 400 of his classmates would walk across the stage and receive their diplomas, and, I said, Almost all of them will do so never having -- once, even -- been in that seat youre in, never having their name on an incident report. Are you sure, I asked him, youve had no role in the trouble youre in? How is it youre so unlucky? He reluctantly acknowledged that perhaps his current situation was -- maybe -- part of a pattern for which he bore some -- a little -- responsibility.
Perhaps most important, Ive learned that students are generally more concerned about taking care of their friends than themselves, and that they actually have a pretty good eye for problematic behavior in others that they completely miss in themselves. That is why most will say they dont engage in high-risk drinking but will report that many of their friends do -- not recognizing, of course, that they themselves are the friends their friends are referring to.
For the most part, I have found my students questionable judgment to sometimes be concerning, sometimes entertaining, sometimes endearing. I made enough bad choices at their age to always feel some sense of connection. What I have rarely felt as a result of their questionable judgment is threatened. For the most part, as I have often intoned, their choices, their consequences. But that is no longer the case for the staff and faculty who interact with students and who share space with them. As were seeing in settings around the world, the actions of one person asserting their freedom from restrictions, or just being careless in their actions, can cause great harm to others.
Suddenly, our students developmentally typical, occasionally selfish actions are a threat not just to themselves or their peers (as is often the case with high-risk drinking or unprotected sex) but also to the very staff charged with looking out for them, to the educators committed to teaching them. I have loved most of my students, but Im not sure Ive ever been willing to put my health, or the health of my family, at risk in order to work with them. Its not that we dont expect some risk when working with students. Anyone who works on a college campus knows the wisdom (and occasional futility) of a flu shot and frequent hand washing. It is just that the stakes have never been so high.
And yet most of us cannot walk away from our jobs. So how do we reopen our campuses this fall if our students demand it and our leaders require it? Can we stay safe in the company of our students? I go back to the lessons I have learned over many years and many conversations with students: do not rely on singular messaging. Speak with many voices and say the same thing to students, over and over. Rely on the developmental power of redundancy to help those messages sink in.
Remind students -- every day -- of their own agency, of their own power to influence the options they will have, especially if they want to continue to be on campus. They need to know their behavior -- good and bad -- can make a difference in how a campus community responds to the virus.
And dont expect students to do the things they need to do just to keep themselves safe. Their motivation to keep their friends safe will carry considerably more weight with them, and in doing so, they will make a difference in the safety of everyone on campus.
If students always followed the rules, many of our jobs wouldnt exist. And if they always did what was expected, the powerful learning that occurs when things go wrong would never happen. We need to find the right balance between risk taking and compliance that will allow us all to stay healthy and our campuses to support what we do best: learning in community. Reminding ourselves of what we know about students in good times will help us weather these difficult times.
Monday, June 15, 2020 12:19 p.m. EDT by Thomson Reuters
(Reuters) - Novavax Inc said on Monday it would raise fresh capital through a $200 million preferred stock offering as it races to develop a vaccine for the new coronavirus, sending its shares up 10.5%.
The private placement to investment fund RA Capital Management was priced at par with Novavax's Friday closing price.
The stock deal is in addition to a $60 million funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to fund the manufacturing of the company's experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
Maryland-based Novavax began testing its coronavirus vaccine candidate in humans in May, with a target of producing over a billion doses of its vaccine candidate next year.
The company had $244.7 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 31.
Novavax shares were trading at $50.34.
(Reporting by Shivani Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
By: Bloomberg | Updated: June 15, 2020 7:40:01 pm The WHO has recommended lifting movement restrictions in stages to test the effect of each before moving to greater openness. (AP)
As authorities the world over lift economy-crippling movement restrictions aimed at curbing coronavirus infections, the fear on everyones minds can be expressed in two words: second wave. The concern is that, once quelled, the pandemic will resurface with renewed strength, causing a repeat of rising infections, swamped health systems and orders for lockdowns. Rashes of new cases in pockets of Asia and the U.S. have added to the fears. Read in Tamil
Whats a second wave?
Its not a scientific term with well-defined parameters. Rather, its used to refer to a subsequent, serious increase in cases that occurs after the original surge has been quashed in a given area. Pandemics are caused by new pathogens that the vast majority of humans have no immune protection against. Thats what allows them to become global outbreaks. Pandemics are uncommon, but influenza is one of the more frequent causes. What often happens is that a novel variant of flu virus spreads around the world and then recedes, kind of like a tsunami. A few months later, it comes back and spreads around the world, or large parts of it, again.
Read| Coronavirus Global Updates: Europe starts to reopen borders; Macron claims first victory
What are the prospects for Covid-19?
Most countries responded to the pandemic by restricting movement, which slows the viruss spread but leaves many people vulnerable to infection once they begin to venture out again. Parts of the U.S. including Texas, California and Florida have seen localized outbreaks weeks into their re-openings. Experts are at a loss to explain why; its not clear theyre linked to resumed economic activity. There also have been scares in Asia. Travel restrictions were imposed on more than 100 million people in Chinas Jilin province, on the border with Russia, after dozens of cases were detected there in May a month after Chinas first lockdown ended in far-away Wuhan. By early June that outbreak was under control and normal life was resuming. South Korea, which began easing its social distancing measures in April, suspended plans for further relaxation in June as new infections emerged. Testing, isolating and contact-tracing remain the main tools to stop a cluster from growing into a wave.
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What makes a first wave recede?
Influenza pandemics can be temporarily beaten back by the change of seasons, moving to the southern hemisphere when the northern half of the globe heats up during its summer, and vice versa. The virus may also have infected a huge portion of people in most areas, giving them immunity from re-infection and possibly creating so-called herd immunity, which protects those who havent been infected by curtailing the viruss circulation. In the case of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, countries around the world adopted movement restrictions on an unprecedented scale and social-distancing measures that combined kept people far enough apart that the virus couldnt easily spread.
So how does a virus come back?
Lifting containment measures too quickly may allow cases to start rising anew. Other factors could lead to a more dramatic increase that might be clearly recognizable as a second wave. In the case of influenza, theres the onset of cool weather, a factor that may affect the coronavirus, too. Or the pathogen can mutate. This is another feature of flu, which evolves more or less constantly. In the latter part of 1918, a second wave of the historic influenza outbreak occurred and caused most of the deaths in that pandemic. Some researchers believe it was brought about by a mutation that made the virus again unrecognizable to most peoples immune systems. Another important variable is the movement of the virus to populations that havent been exposed before and dont have immunity.
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What could prevent it?
The WHO has recommended lifting movement restrictions in stages to test the effect of each before moving to greater openness. In any case, experts say, the key to keeping infections low without locking down everyone is to scale up testing and contact tracing. Health authorities need to find infected people, isolate them and identify their recent contacts, so they can be tested as well and isolated if necessary. Eventually, its possible that enough people will become exposed to the coronavirus that herd immunity will develop and it will stop spreading, or that a vaccine against it will be licensed.
Why wasnt there a second wave of SARS?
The 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Asia never reached the scope of a pandemic. Though caused by a coronavirus, it wasnt as contagious as the one responsible for Covid-19. Its spread was mainly restricted to hospitals and other settings where people came in close contact with the body fluids of infected patients. Ebola is another pathogen relatively new to humans. There have been periodic outbreaks in Africa, but while the virus is highly contagious in some settings, it hasnt been sufficiently infectious to spread around the world like the coronavirus
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