Bhinneka News Online: Wednesday Morning Briefing: Salvaging the summer

Wednesday, 13 May 2020

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Salvaging the summer

Aiming to salvage the summer tourism season, the Brussels-based European Commission will on Wednesday issue guidelines for border restrictions to be gradually lifted and “unrestricted free movement” to restart.

At least 17 countries have imposed emergency border controls to contain the coronavirus, even within the Schengen area, comprising 26 EU and other European countries where frontiers are normally invisible.

Tourism suffered an 80-90% loss in turnover in the first quarter of 2020, hospitality industry lobby groups said, and the sector is braced for a disastrous summer as the EU faces its deepest-ever recession.

However it remains to be seen whether individual countries comply with EU guidelines. Until now, they have tended to go their own way. Spain, for one, is insisting on quarantines for incoming travelers.

Contradictory rules? Just use your common sense...

As governments and business seek to reopen economies, people are often being told they must use common sense to interpret often vague guidelines.
In England for example, ministers are being asked why it is okay for estate agents to resume house viewings while people cannot have relatives to visit.

“There is no perfect way of doing this, and we’d ask people to use their common sense,” said Transport Minister Grant Shapps.

...and police yourselves

Similar questions abound as air travel restarts.

American Airlines, Delta Air and United Airlines have told flight attendants not to force passengers to comply with their new policy requiring face coverings, but just to encourage them to do so, according to employee policies reviewed by Reuters.

"If the customer chooses not to comply for other reasons, please encourage them to comply, but do not escalate further," American told flight attendants in a message on Friday that it provided to Reuters.

"Likewise, if a customer is frustrated by another customer’s lack of face covering, please use situational awareness to de-escalate the situation," it added.

Virtual presence not a substitute

From cardboard cut-outs of real fans to an app allowing supporters to influence the volume of noise piped into stadiums, people are developing ideas for how to put some matchday atmosphere back into stadiums.

But for many, the real problem of "ghost matches" played without fans is the eerie atmosphere with only the shouts of players and coaching staff echoing around deserted arenas.

Cologne coach Markus Gisdol suggested this could even lead to frayed tempers, saying of a March match against Borussia Moenchengladbach: "Everyone on the sidelines was a little more irritable than usual because you could hear more of what the opposing bench were saying and what the officials were saying to each other."

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Aston, UK taxman, Jets, Maersk
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Life under lockdown

Exclusive: U.S. government officials are concerned that dual U.S.-Mexico citizens may flee to the United States if the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico gets worse, putting more stress on U.S. hospitals, especially near the border, three officials familiar with the matter said. The worries, which have not been previously reported, come as hospitals in the San Diego area in southern California have pressed the Trump administration to do more to limit the threat of the virus crossing into the United States.

Workers in India are set to face longer days and lower pay in a “race to the bottom”, academics, activists and unions said, as six states plan to suspend labor laws to help industry recover from the coronavirus lockdown. Despite a spike in COVID-19 cases this week, India is looking to ease its seven-week lockdown amid increasing pressure from business leaders and ordinary people who say the strict curbs have destroyed the livelihoods of millions of workers.

Portugal is to take in 500 children from Greek refugee camps as soon as restrictions on movement imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak are lifted, the country’s Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said on Tuesday. At least 5,200 unaccompanied minors live in Greece, many of them under harsh conditions in camps on islands in the Aegean, and concerns are mounting over how the disease has affected this vulnerable group.

Two migrants who arrived on Greece’s outlying Lesbos island have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, migration ministry sources said, adding they were isolated with no contact with refugee camps on the island. The individuals had arrived on Lesbos on May 6. Since March 1 anyone arriving on the island has been placed in quarantine at a separate facility with no contact with larger groups of asylum seekers at other facilities on the island, the sources added.

Follow the money

Fed's Powell to assess next phase of pandemic economy

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, having overseen the rapid creation of the central bank’s massive network of pandemic-era programs, turns his attention Wednesday morning to where things stand on the cusp of what may be a risky reopening occurring disparately across the 50 U.S. states.

4 min read

Tesla's California fight heats up competition for jobs

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk’s fight with local authorities over the reopening of its California plant has gotten the attention of those who scout sites for new factories and corporate offices, as well as economic development officials hungry for more jobs.

4 min read

House Democrats float $3 trillion coronavirus bill, Republicans reject it

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a $3 trillion-plus coronavirus relief package with funding for states, businesses, food support and families, only to see the measure flatly rejected by Senate Republicans. The new legislation, which would more than double Congress’ financial response to the crisis, includes nearly $1 trillion in long-sought assistance for state and local governments that are bearing the brunt of a pandemic.

5 min read

Resurgent Wall Street disconnected from reality on the ground

With the U.S. economy facing its potentially deepest economic decline in nearly a century, Wall Street is pulling further and further ahead from Main Street. Trillions of dollars of fiscal and monetary stimulus to dampen the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the U.S. economy and financial markets have sent stocks soaring off their lows, while the worst of the fallout on growth and employment has yet to be felt.

5 min read