World Coronavirus Dispatch: UK starts real-time review of Moderna's vaccine

A quarter of European airports face insolvency, Carlsberg lifts forecast as sales rebound, HSBC sees deeper cost cuts, and other pandemic-related news across the globe

One in four European airports face insolvency if travel fails to recover: Many European airports will struggle to stave off insolvency without state help unless travel recovers from its pandemic slump by the end of the year, according to the continent’s main industry group. Airports Council International Europe predicts that 193 out of 740 airports in the region will soon struggle to pay their bills while government-imposed quarantine requirements remain in place, according to findings released Tuesday. The airfields in doubt are mainly smaller, regional hubs but still account for about 277,000 jobs.

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Let’s look at the global statistics:

Total Confirmed Cases: 43,967,634

Change Over Yesterday: 452,956

Total Deaths: 1,166,923

Total Recovered: 29,793,800

Nations hit with most cases: US (8,779,653), India (7,990,322), Brazil (5,439,641), Russia (1,537,142) and France (1,244,242)

Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

UK starts real-time review of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine candidate: The company has begun a rolling data submission from its vaccine candidate to UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for it to start its independent assessment of evidence as and when it becomes available. Such a process allows for a faster approval of a treatment, while maintaining the same standards of safety and effectiveness. Read more here

Airplane Covid-19 risk 'very low' with masks, other actions, report finds: Transmission risks of Covid-19 during airline flights are very low and below other routine activities during the pandemic such as grocery shopping or going out to dinner, when using face coverings and taking other steps, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health said Tuesday. Read more here
 

Carlsberg lifts forecast as sales rebound after lockdowns: The Danish brewer now expects organic operating profit to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage. Previously it forecast a drop in the high single digits. Beer sales were stronger than expected in the third quarter, with “positive volume development” in Russia and China at the start of the current three months. Read more here

HSBC says rock-bottom interest rates may curb free bank accounts: Europe’s largest lender could start charging for basic banking services “in some markets” because low interest rates meant they were losing money, CFO Ewen Stevenson said on an earnings call. Such a change would be the latest example of how years of rock-bottom interest rates in Europe are eroding some of the traditional dynamics of finance. Read more here
 

Reddit will pay US employees the same wherever they work from: Reddit will give employees, with some exceptions, the flexibility to work outside of offices going forward, the company said Tuesday. US employees will now be paid the same, based on high-cost locations like NY or San Francisco, whether they work from those places or not. Read more here

HSBC sees deeper cost cuts, further balance sheet reduction: HSBC said on Tuesday that it plans deeper cost cuts, further balance sheet reduction and increased investment in Asia as it accelerates its overhaul that would result in 35,000 job losses over three years. The bank will seek to pay a "conservative dividend" subject to the economic outlook and regulatory approval. Read more here
 

Small businesses need more aid to keep employees, SBA chief says: Small businesses need a new round of loans and aid from the government to keep employees working as the pandemic continues to spread, the head of the Small Business Administration, a finance agency in the US. SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said business owners have told her they need a renewal of the Paycheck Protection Program that was part of the last stimulus passed by Congress. Read more here
 

Specials 

How open is too open? 
 

Several companies now use software designed to help them shuffle employees, schedule meetings, map office hot spots and maintain safe distance among colleagues keen to ditch the home for the high-rise. There’s a healthy market for this feature. Eurek, one of the makers of the software, says that more than 80 percent of their revenue this year is being driven by companies looking for ways to juggle staffing so they can reopen safely. Fifty businesses are currently using the Maptician platform, which allows employers to keep their in-person staff as socially distant as possible and detects areas of high transmission risk, like desks spaced too closely, narrow walkways and enclosed conference rooms. The office maps are also time-sensitive, which means companies can use them as a form of contact tracing: If someone in the office reports a positive Covid-19 test, co-workers can go into the map and see if they were ever seated nearby. Read more here

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Tracking the cure: Top coronavirus vaccines to watch

Coronavirus vaccines are moving much faster, partly because governments are taking on the financial risk of developing a vaccine that may not work. Through Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government has invested about $9.5 billion to speed up development and jump-start manufacturing before research is finished. Advancements in science and technology have given researchers new tools to try against the coronavirus. Scientists can deliver genetic material into the body’s cells, turning them into vaccine factories and skipping time-consuming steps such as manufacturing viral proteins or growing the whole virus in chicken eggs. See updates from 200 vaccine candidates
 

US Covid-19 cases are skyrocketing, but deaths are flat: These five charts explain why