CDC Says Sun-Belt Cases Ease; Europe Fights Spike: Virus Update

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California’s hospitalizations for Covid-19 fell to the lowest since late June and daily cases stayed below the two-week trend line. European leaders sought to confront a Covid-19 resurgence, with Italy reporting the most new cases since mid-May and cases in England rising by more than a quarter in a week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron said they oppose renewed nationwide lockdowns, arguing that Europe needs to coordinate its strategy for avoiding another economic hit from the virus.

As the race for a Covid-19 vaccine gets closer to the finish line, investors are parsing details of trial designs. Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer announced advances.

Key Developments:

  • Global Tracker: Cases exceed 22.5 million; deaths pass 789,000
  • NYC landlords press finance bosses to speed return and save city
  • Virtual classes can’t stop explosion of off-campus virus cases
  • Florida’s DeSantis rediscovers a key pandemic metric
  • Vaccine Tracker: Where we are in the race for Covid-19 protection

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click CVID on the terminal for global data on coronavirus cases and deaths.

69,672 in IndiaMost new cases today

-1% Change in MSCI World Index of global stocks since Wuhan lockdown, Jan. 23

-1.​087 Change in U.S. treasury bond yield since Wuhan lockdown, Jan. 23

5.​4% Global GDP Tracker (annualized), July


Two Mets Test Positive, Games Postponed (6:15 a.m. HK)

The New York Mets have two positive Covid-19 cases, Major League Baseball said in a statement. Thursday’s series finale against the Miami Marlins in Florida and the start of the Subway Series Friday against the New York Yankees at Citi Field have both been postponed.

Additional testing and contact tracing will take place, the league said. No announcement was made regarding the remainder of the Subway Series.

One player and one staff member tested positive for the Mets, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported.

Brazil Cases Fall, Deaths Rise (6:05 a.m. HK)

Brazil reported 45,323 new cases, almost 4,000 fewer than during the previous 24-hour period. While progress in stemming the pandemic has been uneven, weekly new cases have mostly declined since a peak in late July, according to Health Ministry data. Deaths increased by 1,204 to 112,304, the smallest rise since Monday.

Investors Eye Vaccine Advances from J&J and Pfizer (5:37 p.m. NY)

As the race for a Covid-19 vaccine gets closer to the finish line, investors are parsing details of trial designs like never before as they handicap which is most likely to succeed.

Johnson & Johnson confirmed in an email Thursday that it plans to test its Covid-19 vaccine in as many as 60,000 people, twice the number of other big trials being conducted in the U.S. The company first posted the design for the trial on Aug. 10, and it is set to begin in late September.

Meanwhile, Pfizer Inc. released favorable safety data from a Phase 1 trial of its vaccine. The New York-based company, which is developing its product with German partner BioNTech SE, hadn’t previously released safety data on the shot it will move into a final-stage trial.

“Investors are trying to decipher who’s going to be the winner and who might be left behind,” said Yaron Werber, a Cowen analyst.

Texas Reports Over 200 Deaths (5:12 p.m. NY)

Texas reported 234 more virus fatalities, bringing the cumulative death toll for the state to 10,793, according to health department data released Thursday. New cases increased by 4,923 to total 562,559.

But the second-largest U.S. state’s efforts to track the spread and severity of the pandemic continued to be hobbled by data collection and analysis lapses that have undermined confidence in the metrics relied on by political leaders.

For example, Houston posted 14 additional fatalities, nine of which actually occurred in July and once which happened on June 26, according to information released by Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office.

The statewide positive-test rate also continued to gyrate wildly, jumping to 14.13% as of Wednesday from an eight-week low of 10.81% a day earlier. State health department officials are investigating but a spokeswoman said preliminary inquiries found faulty coding and a software upgrade played a role in skewing the numbers.

CDC Chief Says Sun Belt Outbreak Is Slowing (4:10 p.m. NY)

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. South is starting to slow, and that deaths across the country should start dropping next week. “We are beginning to turn the tide on the southern outbreak,” he said during an interview with JAMA.

U.S. Cases Rise 0.8% (4 p.m. NY)

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. increased 0.8% as compared with the same time Wednesday to 5.55 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News.

The increase -- the fourth straight day that cases rose by 0.8% -- was lower than the average daily gain of 0.9% over the past week. Deaths rose by 0.7% to 173,699.

  • Florida reported 588,602 cases, up 0.8% from a day earlier, in line with the average increase in the previous seven days. Deaths reached 10,049, an increase of 117, or 1.2%.
  • California reported 5,920 new infections, below the 14-day average of 8,198. There were 163 new deaths from Covid-19, bringing total fatalities to 11,686.
  • Hawaii experienced a 4.9% increase in the number of cases, bringing the total to 5,609, according to the data from Johns Hopkins and Bloomberg News.

French Schools to Open on Schedule (2:40 p.m. NY)

Schools in France will open as planned on Sept. 1, despite calls from teachers for more time to prepare because of the coronavirus, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said in a television interview.

Sanitary protocols the government set forth in July, which include hand-washing and indoor mask-wearing by staff and students older than 11, are sufficient even as the spread of the virus picks up, Blanquer said. Rules can be adapted on a case-by-case basis as needed, he said.

California Hospitalizations at Lowest Since June (2:25 p.m. NY)

California’s hospitalizations from the virus dropped 3.3% to 4,890 patients, the lowest since late June, according to state health data through Wednesday. They’ve fallen 32% from a July peak.

Daily case trends also showed improvement. The state reported 5,920 new infections, below the 14-day average of 8,198. The rate of positive tests over the past two weeks was unchanged at 6.6%. There were 163 new deaths from Covid-19, bringing total fatalities to 11,686.

Notre Dame Football Reports Five Cases (2:02 p.m. NY)

After two rounds of Covid-19 testing this week, five student-athletes from the Notre Dame football team tested positive for the virus, the team announced Thursday.

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August 20 - Testing Update7:10 PM · Aug 20, 2020

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The five players plus an additional six identified in contact tracing have been placed in quarantine. The school has announced 237 positive cases in the last three days, and earlier this week undergrad classes were moved online until at least Sept. 2.

Earlier Thursday, the University of Connecticut football team paused activities after six student-athletes tested positive.

U.S. Facing Years-Long Job Losses, IRS Says (1:40 p.m. NY)

The Internal Revenue Service projects that lower levels of employment in the U.S. could persist for years, showcasing the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

The IRS forecasts there will be about 229.4 million employee-classified jobs in 2021 -- about 37.2 million fewer than it had estimated last year before the virus hit, according to updated data released Thursday. The statistics are an estimate how many of the W-2 tax forms that are used to track employee wages and withholding the agency will receive.

Lower rates of W-2 filings are seen persisting through at least 2027, with about 15.9 million fewer forms filed that year compared with prior estimates.

England Cases Rise as Economy Reopens (1:02 p.m. NY)

Virus cases in England increased by more than a quarter in the week through Aug. 12, underscoring the risks facing Boris Johnson’s government as it tries to boost economic activity without triggering a new peak in the pandemic.

The U.K. Department of Health reported 6,616 new Covid-19 cases during the period, a 27% rise, even as the total number of people tested fell by 2%. Positive cases among those presenting clinical need, as well as hospital and care workers, rose by 34%, the biggest rise since the government began its test and trace program at the end of May.

Johnson’s ministers have been steadily reopening parts of the British economy, and are trying to shift the focus toward dealing with new outbreaks with targeted local lockdowns rather than national measures.

Cuomo Expands Mail-In Voting (12:38 p.m. NY)

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation making it easier for New Yorkers to submit absentee ballots to encourage people to vote who are afraid of being exposed to the coronavirus. The new law, he said, was also driven by what he called the Trump administration’s undermining of postal service to suppress the vote.

“The federal administration has ordered an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Postal Service and with Covid-19 threatening our ability to have safe, in-person voting, these measures are critical to ensuring a successful and fair election at one of the most important moments in our nation’s history,” he said in a statement.

The new law allows people who fear infection to request an absentee ballot and outlines rules for counting votes by when they are postmarked or received.

Arizona Cases Steady; Deaths Drop (11:40 a.m. NY)

Arizona on Thursday reported 723 new virus cases, a 0.4% increase to 196,280 that matched the prior seven-day average. The state Department of Health Services also reported 50 new deaths from Covid-19, down from 105 the day before, bringing the toll to 4,684.

Florida Positivity Rate Extends Decline (10:50 a.m. NY)

Florida reported 588,602 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, up 0.8% from a day earlier, in line with the average increase in the previous seven days.

The new daily rate of people testing positive for the first time fell to 6.8% for Wednesday, the lowest since June 14. The state has reported 31,465 new cases in the past seven days, the fewest in a comparable period since late June.

Deaths among Florida residents reached 10,049, an increase of 117, or 1.2%, according to the health department report, which includes data through Wednesday. Although cases and hospitalizations have been slowing in Florida, the state continues to report more than 1,000 new Covid-19 deaths a week. Deaths often trail infections by weeks, and generally take even longer to be reflected in the data.

Sweden to Join EU’s AstraZeneca Pact (10:45 a.m. NY)

Sweden’s government has decided to join the European Union’s agreement to distribute a coronavirus vaccine via drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc.

Sweden expects to get about 6 million doses based on the size of its population, and the country’s health agency has been granted a budget of 2 billion kronor ($229 million) to finance purchases of the vaccine, according to Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.

U.S. Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Top 1 Million (8:54 a.m. NY)

Initial jobless claims in regular state programs rose to more than 1.1 million last week, even after analysts forecast a decline, fresh evidence that the U.S. labor market recovery will occur in fits and starts.

Poland Mulls Restrictions in Krakow (8:46 a.m. NY)

Poland may put Krakow, its second-largest city, as well as Katowice, center of the Silesia mining region, under special restrictions because of a high number of coronavirus infections, deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska said at a news conference Thursday.

Scotland Cases Rise After Schools Reopen (8:14 a.m. NY)

Scotland reported its highest daily number of coronavirus cases in almost three months, with several small clusters linked to schools, which reopened last week. Larger spikes were earlier sourced to a pub in the oil city of Aberdeen and a food processing plant in a small town.

Estee Lauder to Cut as Many as 2,000 Jobs (7:12 a.m. NY)

Estee Lauder Cos. plans to cut 1,500 to 2,000 jobs worldwide and boost its digital operations after coronavirus lockdowns hit demand for cosmetics.

With consumers shifting to more online purchases, the company said it plans to close 10% to 15% of its free-standing stores.

CureVac, EU in Talks for 225 Million Vaccine Doses (5:37 p.m. HK)

The European Commission concluded initial talks with CureVac NV to purchase 225 million vaccine doses, according to a statement. The commission is also pursuing discussions with other vaccine manufacturers.

Norges Bank Sees No Near Change to Zero Rate (4:06 p.m. HK)

Norges Bank said it will probably need to keep interest rates at a record low for “some time ahead” to give the economy room to recover. The Oslo-based central bank left its benchmark rate at zero on Thursday, where it’s been since a series of emergency cuts at the height of the Covid-19 crisis earlier this year.

Germany New Infections Rise (1:15 p.m. HK)

Germany recorded more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for a third straight day, with the number of infections near Tuesday’s four-month high.

Cases increased by 1,586 in the 24 hours through Thursday morning, compared with a gain of 1,420 a day earlier and 1,693 on Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That brought the total to 229,706. There were eight fatalities, taking the country’s total to 9,249.

— With assistance by Ian Fisher, Mark Schoifet, Joe Carroll, Flynn McRoberts, Alex Morales, Laura Davison, Alexandre Tanzi, Kara Wetzel, Frank Connelly, Jim Silver, Robert Langreth, Cristin Flanagan, and Luke McGrath

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