World coronavirus dispatch: The virus may have become much less lethal

From lengths to which hedge funds would go to protect staff, to why financial hiring gets tougher, and how Wuhan may have eradicated the virus - read these and more in today's world dispatch

In a piece of welcome news, a group of doctors in Italy have said the coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal. The swabs that were taken for testing in Italy in the past 10 days showed, in quantitative terms, infinitesimal viral load compared with those taken a month or two ago, said the head of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. The finding could be a major event in our effort to understand Covid-19 virus better. Read more here.

Let’s look at the global statistics

• Total confirmed cases: 6,166,978
• Change over previous day: 103,390
• Total deaths: 372,037
• Total recovered: 2,641,330
• Nations hit with most cases: The US (1,790,191), Brazil (514,849), Russia (405,843), the UK (276,156) and Spain (239,479).

Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

Thailand announces $60-billion economic aid: The Thai parliament on Sunday approved a $60-billion stimulus package, the kingdom's biggest-ever cash injection, to revive its economy. The package will include $17.3 billion as aid to farmers and informal workers and a $1.4-billion spend on healthcare infrastructure. Read more here

Goldman rolls back pessimistic outlook for US stocks: Strategists at Goldman Sachs have rolled back their prediction that the S&P 500 would slump to the 2,400 level — over 20% below Friday’s close of 3,044 — and now see downside risks capped at 2,750. The US equity benchmark could even rally further to 3,200, it wrote in a note. Read more here

Wuhan’s mass testing may have eradicated the virus: Wuhan authorities said they found no new cases of “silent spreaders” for the first time in nearly two months as the city’s aggressive push to test its entire population appeared to have succeeded in breaking hidden chains of transmission. Of the 60,000 people tested on Sunday, no cases of asymptomatic infections were found. Read more here

Lockdown eases in Moscow: Russia would relax some lockdown rules in the capital, which has a population of 12.7 million, allowing an array of shops to reopen. Residents will be allowed out for walks three times a week on designated days determined by the address they live at. People can also jog or do outdoor sports, but only between 5 am and 9 am. Shopping centres and most parks will open today. Read more here

Specials

How financial hiring will get tougher in never-meet-in-person era: Recruiting during a pandemic requires “breaking down a lot of prejudices about how to do things,” said Quentin Marshall, head of private banking at UK lender Weatherbys. Like those of Weatherbys’s, other companies’ recruitment methods vary, but they offer a glimpse at the ways the pandemic could overturn long-established workplace traditions and practices when it comes to looking for new employees. It may not necessarily make things quicker. For new recruits, a remote hiring process is typically more exhaustive. Read more here

Hedge funds go to extreme lengths to protect staff from the virus: One hedge fund may shut an office in Asia permanently and have employees work from home. Another may dramatically shrink its Manhattan headquarters. Interviews with almost a dozen industry players show their plans are idiosyncratic and may go to new extremes. It reflects their need to protect star traders at any cost, but also the reality that they have less control over buildings shared with other tenants. Read more here

Asia’s factories remain in doldrums even as lockdowns ease: The factory data underscore the fragile and uneven recovery expected in Asia as prospects continue to weaken for countries in the Northeast. Data recently have shown an uptick in global demand, with risks that the recovery across economies will be uneven without a vaccine for coronavirus. Manufacturing gauges are signalling more relief so far than services sectors, with governments only now beginning to ease lockdowns and allow for more mobility. Read more here

Peru locked down hard and early. Then why is its coronavirus outbreak so bad? Public health experts say living and working conditions in Peru, a country of 33 million where a fifth of people live on only around $100 a month, has made it near impossible for many citizens to comply with quarantine measures. Meanwhile, some government measures have backfired, inadvertently leading to bigger gatherings of people. Read more to understand how the virus spread in Peru

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