THE DAILY EDGE: 24 APRIL 2020

Virus Update

The number of tests is increasing…

…so are new cases…

…and new deaths…

• California came into focus, reporting the most fatalities in one 24-hour period, and Texas cases rose for a third day. Still, New York’s hospitalizations are relatively flat, though Governor Andrew Cuomo said that’s “not great news.”
• The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths in Germany rose by the most in nearly a week, a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the nation is “far from being out of the woods.” There were 2,481 new cases in the 24 hours through Friday morning, bringing the total to 153,129, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Fatalities rose by 260 to 5,575 and the death rate edged up by about a 10th of a percentage point to 3.6%.
• Singapore reported 897 new coronavirus cases, after seeing more than 1,000 infections in each of the previous four days. The vast majority of the new cases came from work permit holders living in migrant worker dormitories, according to the Ministry of Health. Singapore is looking to pivot to a more aggressive coronavirus response strategy that involves mass testing for its population of 5.7 million people as cases in the city-state jumped more than 10-fold this month to cross 11,000.
• Tokyo confirmed 161 new cases, according to a report from Nikkei. That’s up from 134 on Thursday.
• A total of 5,849 new cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus infection have been confirmed in 82 regions of Russia in the past 24 hours, including contacts and patients without clinical symptoms standing at 2,697 (46.1%),
• In India, officials reported 1,684 new coronavirus cases, up from the 1,409 reported Thursday morning. That’s the biggest single-day spike yet for the outbreak in India, where the number of confirmed cases has reached 23,077, with 718 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, numbers that some epidemiologists fear are well below the true number of active infections.
• Belgium reported 1,496 newly confirmed coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, up from 908 the prior day and the most since April 15. The increase fully reflects an acceleration in the test program being rolled out in the nation’s senior care centers since April 10. The curve of new infections outside the nursing homes keeps flattening.
• Australia has started the process of reopening though most stores won’t reopen until the middle of next month, but local officials in Sydney decided to close three beaches that had been briefly opened because locals broke safety restrictions.
• CNN reported overnight that researchers in China have successfully cloned antibodies from recovered patients, a step toward developing a “new kind of treatment for the virus.” In test tubes, the antibodies prevented the binding of the novel coronavirus to its receptor, according to the researchers. Antibodies that block that step, which is critical for infection, could become a promising treatment.
• Coronavirus found in stool samples 22 days after onset of symptoms
• U.S. President Donald Trump (“I’m not a doctor. But I’m like a person that has a good you-know-what.”) suggested testing to see if bleach could kill the new coronavirus.“The disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute,” he said. “Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside?” He said it would be “almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on the lungs.” (…) “Inhaling chlorine bleach would be absolutely the worst thing for the lungs,” said John Balmes, a pulmonoligist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco. “The airway and lungs are not made to be exposed to even an aerosol of disinfectant.” “Not even a low dilution of bleach or isopropyl alcohol is safe,” Balmes said in a telephone interview. “It’s a totally ridiculous concept.”
• On Friday morning, the maker of Lysol and Dettol, Reckitt Benckiser Plc, issued a statement that “under no circumstance” should its disinfectant products be administered into the human body, through injection, ingestion or any other route. The company said it was issuing the guidance after it was asked whether internal administration of disinfectants “may be appropriate for investigation or use as a treatment for coronavirus,” amid recent speculation and social media activity.
• As others squabble over the timing and details of how to develop such a vaccine, Sanofi Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson points further ahead to the continent’s ability to produce enough to meet demand. “There is less concern about finding a successful vaccine than there is about making the volumes needed,” Hudson told reporters on Friday. “The biggest untold story in Europe right now is the one about the number of doses.” (…) The U.S. may be in a position to vaccinate first, according to Hudson, thanks to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a government agency that backs vaccine development. There’s no similar coordination in Europe.
• The first modern pandemic The scientific advances we need to stop COVID-19. (Bill Gates’ blog)

PANDENOMICS

• US jobless claims of 4.4m take pandemic toll to a record 26m Historic levels of benefit applications more than wipe out past decade of employment gains
• Germany expects gross domestic product to shrink between 6% and 7% in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus, the worst contraction since at least 1950, Spiegel magazine reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration expects a recovery in 2021 of more than 5%, the weekly reported on Friday, citing Economy Ministry projections due to be presented next week.
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• Core new orders offer hope for continued investment spending (ING)
• Resentment Grows on Main Street Over Bailout Winners and Losers The clunky, slow rollout of help for small businesses comes as aid for the financial system flows freely.
• US banks pull back from lending to European companies JPMorgan, Goldman and BofA have become more cautious over loans, say executives and bankers
• EU fails to settle rifts over size and shape of ‘recovery fund’
• Credit card issuer American Express Co posted a 76% drop in first-quarter profit on Friday, as it set aside $2.6 billion to cover potential losses stemming from the coronavirus outbreak.It also warned that the slowdown it began to see in March as a result of the nationwide shelter-in-place orders has “dramatically” impacted spending on its cards in April. (…) “In light of the current environment, we are aggressively reducing costs across the enterprise.”
• UBS now expects potential insured losses from Covid-19 of $30 billion to $60 billion, up from a previous estimate of $20 billion to $40 billion. UBS said while it was confident European insurers’ balance sheets could withstand the hit, the level of uncertainty remained high.
• Gap warns of cash shortage, suspends rent payments
• Ottawa proposes commercial relief that would cover up to 75 per cent of rent payments for three months A portion of the loans – as much as two-thirds, according to three sources – is expected to be forgivable
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• J.C. Penney in Advanced Talks for Bankruptcy Financing J.C. Penney is in advanced talks for bankruptcy funding with a group of lenders, a sign the troubled retailer is about to succumb to the economic collapse caused by the pandemic.

• (…) A bankruptcy filing could take place within the next few weeks, the people said. (…) Neiman Marcus Group Inc. is planning to file for bankruptcy any day, according to people familiar with the matter. (…) Should the near-total shutdown of business forced by the coronavirus continue for much longer, companies in other industries are expected to follow suit.

• US education faces US$15 billion hit as Chinese students stay away

The Fed Should Go Negative Next Week Narayana Kocherlakota (former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 2009 to 2015)

(…) Several European central banks, as well as the Bank of Japan, have successfully taken interest rates below zero. 1 This stimulates consumer demand in the usual ways: by incentivizing banks to make loans at lower interest rates, to bid up the prices of financial assets, and to charge higher fees for deposits. (…)

But officials worry that they will also weigh on banks’ profitability, pushing down share prices and making the financial system more vulnerable to distress. Put crudely, the Fed is giving up on unemployment reductions to help keep banks and their shareholders safer.

The Fed is inventing a trade-off where none exists. If the central bank really cares about financial stability, it has many tools to ensure it. Right now, for example, it could block large banks from paying dividends, a practice that erodes the capital they need to absorb losses. (…) So, the Fed is left no good argument against going negative. (…)

Watch Out in the South China Sea As U.S.-China tensions increase, the chance of a miscalculation grows.

With the world preoccupied by the coronavirus pandemic, China has been looking to exert more military control in the South China Sea. This week three warships from the U.S. Seventh Fleet, joined by an Australian frigate, responded by sailing into the disputed waters in a show of force. The danger is that Chinese naval officers misread America’s public mood and think they can embarrass the U.S. without escalation. (…)

This month Vietnam said a Chinese ship deliberately rammed and sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat. Indonesia’s fishermen are also reporting escalating harassment, and in recent weeks Chinese government and militia ships have been tailing Malaysian oil-exploration boats.

U.S. freedom of navigation exercises are intended to affirm that Beijing cannot unilaterally seize control of the waterway. Some waters of the South China Sea are claimed by multiple neighboring countries, but China is the strongest power in the region and last week it announced its sovereignty over more islands over objections from Vietnam and the Philippines. China wants to assert its dominance, chasing other countries’ commercial maritime traffic out of waters even near their own coasts. (…)

U.S.-Chinese tensions are also increasing, as Americans blame China for its deceptions about the coronavirus in an election year. Chinese propagandists have claimed the U.S. may have created the virus.

Under these circumstances the chance of a military miscalculation increases. (…) The U.S. has remained neutral on territorial claims, but it may need to start recognizing claims of countries like Vietnam to make China pay a price for further expansion. The U.S. should also try to maintain its defense pact with the Philippines under mercurial President Rodrigo Duterte.

China’s recent behavior has badly damaged its claims to be a global stakeholder that plays by the rules. The U.S. is right to make clear that it remains a Pacific power and that the coronavirus hasn’t lessened its resolve.

Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products Contrary to assertions to Congress, employees often consulted sales information on third-party vendors when developing private-label merchandise. “We knew we shouldn’t,” said one former employee who accessed such data.