|  | | | | | | | | | What you need to know about the coronavirus today | | | | | | Insurers beat back virus claims
U.S. property and casualty insurers have cast the coronavirus pandemic as an unprecedented event whose cost to small businesses they are neither able nor required to cover. The industry has warned it could cost them $255 billion to $431 billion a month if they are required, as some states are proposing, to compensate firms for income lost and expenses owed due to virus-led shutdowns, an amount it says would make insurers insolvent.
British economy battered
The UK economy shrank by a quarter in the March-April period as entire sectors were shuttered by the coronavirus lockdown. “This is catastrophic, literally on a scale never seen before in history,” Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said. “The real issue is what happens next.”
Bottlenecks? Glass vial makers prepare for vaccine
Drugmakers are warning of a potential shortage of vials to bottle future COVID-19 vaccines, but their rush to secure supplies risks making matters worse. Schott AG, the world’s largest maker of speciality glass for vaccine vials, says it has turned down requests to reserve output from major pharmaceutical firms because it does not want to commit resources before it is clear which vaccines will work.
Roping in the drones
Airspace Systems, a California startup company that makes drones that can hunt down and capture other drones, released new software for monitoring social distancing and protective face-mask wearing from the air. The software analyzes video streams captured by drones and can identify when people are wearing masks, standing close together or points where people gather in clusters. Airspace aims to sells the system to cities and police departments.
| | | | | | | | From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - UK economy, Jewelry, Animal feed. The UK’s GDP collapse all but ensures further Bank of England asset purchases, and DSM’s $1 billion deal will please cattle more than shareholders. Catch up with the latest financial insights. | | | | | | | | Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Covid Science | | | Follow the money | | U.S. stock index futures surged about 2% on Friday, pointing to a quick rebound for Wall Street from its biggest one-day dive in about three months on fears of a resurgence in coronavirus infections. 2 min read | | | | Cheryl Wellman was able to bring back most of her furloughed workers last month with the help of a special government loan. Now she’s laying them off again. Some of the strength in the U.S. payrolls report for May - which included a startling 225,000 manufacturing jobs added - was the result of companies taking part in this program. The problem now is that demand in many industrial sectors, from oil and gas to construction equipment, remains depressed. 5 min read | | | | When the novel coronavirus first appeared in the United States, North Dakota was in the envious position of having more money in its state coffers than it had budgeted. Now, it is making sweeping cuts to state agencies in a bid to stem the financial bleeding from a historic oil price collapse sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, and a battered farm economy still struggling with the fallout from the U.S.-China trade war. 7 min read | | | | | | | | | | | | | Top Stories on Reuters TV | | | | | | | |
