World Coronavirus Dispatch: Brazil President tests positive for Covid-19

Japan in talks with UK, France for $20 bn fund to jointly buy vaccine, Hong Kong to subsidise conference industry, US formally exits WHO and other pandemic-related news across the globe

Japan is in talks with the UK, France and other potential partners to set up a $20 billion fund to jointly buy coronavirus vaccine. The nations join forces to match US-China purchasing power, according to an exclusive report in Nikkei. The nations aim to establish the purchasing program as soon as this summer, with Japan expected to contribute as much as $800 million or so. Read more here 
 

Let’s look at the global statistics: 



Total Confirmed Cases: 11,829,602

Change Over Yesterday: 557,260


Total Deaths: 544,163


Total Recovered: 6,447,656

Nations hit with most cases: US (2,996,098), Brazil (1,668,589), India (742,417), Russia (693,215) and Peru (309,278)

Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

Brazil President tests positive for Covid-19: Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down risks of what he has called the "little flu", saying he would not be seriously affected. He has opposed lockdowns, which he says hurt the economy. On Monday, he took his fourth test, after developing symptoms, including a high temperature. Read more here

Vaccine maker Novavax gets $1.6 billion in government funding: The US company, which has never brought a product to the market, received $1.6 billion under the government’s Operation Warp Speed plan. It would produce and offer 100 million doses of its new vaccine by the beginning of next year. With this, the US government has spent $4 billion on companies pushing vaccines. Read more here

DHL to lay off 2,200 UK workers at Jaguar Land Rover: Logistics company DHL International plans to lay off as many as 2,200 UK workers based at Jaguar Land Rover factories in the latest blow to automotive jobs in the nation. About two in five of the DHL employees at JLR’s UK factories face dismissal. Read more here 
 

Google, Amazon may funnel over $20 million to virus conspiracy sites: Google’s platforms will provide $19 million. OpenX, a smaller digital ad distributor, handles about 10 percent of the money, while Amazon’s technology delivers roughly $1.7 million, according to a research group called the Global Disinformation Index. GDI estimated that 480 English websites as publishers of virus misinformation that had these misleading ads. Read more here

US formally exits WHO: The Trump administration has sent a letter giving the UN a one-year notice for the US to quit the World Health Organization, formalizing President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the agency even as the coronavirus rages out of control in the US and in many other countries. Read more here

AirAsia may go down under, auditors warn: The airline’s current liabilities already exceeded its current assets by 1.84 billion ringgit ($430 million) at the end of 2019, a year when it posted a 283 million ringgit net loss, Ernst & Young said. The financial performance and cash flow have now been further hit by virus-related travel restrictions. Read more here

Hong Kong to subsidise conference industry: To revive its conference industry, Hong Kong will offer $131.6 million in subsidies to exhibitors, organizers and participants. Organizers of new events will be able to use either of the city's two exhibition centers rent-free while others may be eligible for a 50 percent subsidy. Read more here

Specials

Long-read


A Mathematician’s guide to how contagion spreads

Adam Kcharski didn’t expect to publish a book about contagion in the middle of a global pandemic. “In my field we always have the next pandemic on the radar,” he says. Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a mathematician by training. He uses data and models to predict how disease outbreaks will progress. His new book, The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread—and Why They Stop, lays out those tools and how they can be applied to other parts of life. Specifically he talks about a mindset for dealing with incomplete information, as infectious-disease researchers must when they encounter a novel, fast-moving pathogen. Read more here

How to keep the good habits post lock-down

Perhaps you are fitting in frequent runs or a consistent yoga practice, maintaining better correspondence with friends, or sleeping according to your body’s optimal schedule. Or you may be spending more time in the kitchen. So, how do you maintain these new, good habits upon re-entering the world after Covid-19-related lockdowns? Unfortunately, the science says you’re basically going to have to relearn them once you resume your pre-lockdown schedule, says Fiery Cushman, a professor of psychology at Harvard. Read more here

In early February, the Coronavirus was moving through New York

A new study offers the first physical evidence that the coronavirus was circulating at low levels in New York City as early as the first week of February. The city confirmed its first infection on March 1. Mathematical models have predicted that the virus was making its way through the city weeks before then, but the new report is the first to back the conjecture with testing data. The study found that some New Yorkers had antibodies to the virus as early as the week ending Feb. 23. Read more here