Bedugul Coffee: Thursday Morning Briefing: South Korea scrambles to add hospital beds as COVID-19 resurgence strains system

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

South Korea scrambles to add hospital beds
South Korea promised to double its critical-care hospital beds amid a severe shortage, highlighting the strain of the pandemic on even well-equipped countries.

The spike in serious cases, with older people making up an increasing proportion of patients amid a broader resurgence, marks a sharp turn for a country that was seen as successful in crushing one of the worst early outbreaks of the new coronavirus outside China. Fewer than 10 intensive-care beds were available in the greater Seoul area, a metropolis of 26 million people, as of Tuesday, health authorities said.

Track the global spread of the virus.

U.S. says it will not pay what it owes WHO
The United States will not pay some $80 million it owes the World Health Organization and will instead redirect the money to help pay its United Nations bill in New York, a Trump administration official said. The United States plans to leave the Geneva-based WHO on July 6, 2021 after President Donald Trump accused it of becoming a puppet for China during the coronavirus pandemic. The WHO has rejected Trump’s assertion.

Myanmar seals off capital
Myanmar has imposed mandatory quarantine and coronavirus tests for visitors to its capital city after reporting dozens more infections and leader Aung San Suu Kyi warned of a “disaster for the country”. Anyone entering the capital, Naypyitaw, where the government is based, will be quarantined, tested, and allowed in only if their result is negative, according to a government order published on Facebook.

UK ramps up trials of 20-minute tests
Britain said it was investing in trials of a 20-minute COVID-19 test, with a view to rolling out widespread, systematic testing to detect outbreaks early, amid criticism over backlogs in its current testing system. Health minister Matt Hancock has said he hopes mass testing using faster COVID-19 tests can be rolled out towards the end of the year, adding that they are key to restoring freedoms after months of COVID-19 restrictions.

‘Do we have enough soap?’
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told children she was confident a vaccine against the coronavirus will be found and that the disease could become one of many kids are vaccinated against. She spoke at her third news conference held specially for children, with adults not allowed to ask questions, since the crisis began. At the first such briefing on March 16, Solberg told children it was “OK” to feel scared about the pandemic. Other questions asked by children included: “Do we have enough soap?”, “Does Norway have any money left after the pandemic?” and “Could we have Antibac that smells nice?”

From Breakingviews - Corona Capital: K-pop, Consulting, Cooling.
Big Hit Entertainment, the South Korean management label behind popular K-pop boy-band BTS, is pushing on with its IPO. The music, it seems, will go on; Capgemini does better than feared. Catch up with today's corona capital by Breakingviews columnists.

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Politics

Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Joe Biden for president, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.

The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members said.

Joe Biden will make his first campaign venture into a strife-torn American city when he travels to Kenosha, Wisconsin, which has become the latest battleground over police brutality and racial injustice.

President Trump’s re-election campaign sued the Democratic governor of Montana in an attempt to halt an expansion of mail-in voting in the run up to November’s election.

The lawsuit comes as Trump frequently alleges - without providing evidence - that voting by mail is riddled with fraud, and as a record number of Americans are expected to mail their ballots because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump suggested that people in the state of North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once in person and once by mail, although doing so is a crime.

“Let them send it in and let them go vote,” Trump said in an interview with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina, when asked about the security of mail-in votes. “And if the system is as good as they say it is then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person.

Environment

The official August data on the number of fires in Brazil’s Amazon needs to be corrected and will likely show an increase over last year, meaning that blazes surged to a decade high, a scientist responsible for the figures told Reuters. Brazilian media has reported that fires in Brazil’s section of the Amazon rainforest fell by 5% in August, citing data currently on the website of government space research agency Inpe that has not been corrected.

The worst fires in more than a decade are cutting through Argentina’s vast wetlands, exacerbated by low water levels in the Parana River delta region that have exposed carbon-rich soil ripe for burning. Infrared technology and satellite imagery have detected more hot spots, or potential fires, in the country’s largest wetland during August than have been found in any other month this year, scientists said.

Business

Onboarding during COVID: new hires grapple with office politics from home

Joining a new company can be tough at the best of times, with bosses to impress, skills to learn and new colleagues to befriend. But that task becomes a whole lot harder when the “onboarding” is done during a pandemic that has forced millions to work from home, leaving new hires to judge colleagues on their taste in curtains and conduct on Zoom.

4 min read

Amazon bucks UK labour market gloom with 7,000 new jobs

Amazon brought a little cheer to Britain’s troubled labour market, saying it will create a further 7,000 permanent jobs in 2020, taking total new hires this year to 10,000. Last month the number of people in work in Britain suffered the biggest drop since 2009 and the coronavirus is expected to take a much heavier toll on unemployment when the government winds down its huge job-protection scheme.

2 min read