| | | What you need to know about the coronavirus today |
Cambridge University to hold lectures online Britain’s Cambridge University became one of the first in the world to announce that all its lectures would be delivered online over the next academic year. The university, which shut its campuses to students in March after the government introduced a strict lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, said teaching would be delivered virtually until summer 2021, although it was possible some smaller teaching groups might be able to occur in person. Arise, Sir Tom Captain Tom Moore, who became a national hero in Britain after raising more than $40 million for the National Health Service in the run-up to his 100th birthday, is to be knighted. Moore becomes “Sir Tom” after a special nomination from Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The World War Two veteran raised the record sum by painstakingly completing 100 laps of his garden with the aid of a walking frame, becoming a symbol of British endurance in the face of the adversity of the coronavirus crisis. Lighting Up The Skies On a night not too far in the future but still being kept secret, skies across Japan will light up with simultaneous fireworks displays from north to south in a plan by fireworks makers to cheer a nation weary of battling the coronavirus. Fireworks are a centuries-old tradition in Japan, where massive, colorful displays are a symbol of summer and draw hordes of people, many wearing bright summer kimono. They began as a way of warding off bad luck and epidemics. Track the spread with our live blog and interactive graphic | |
Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic. We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources. Here’s a look at our coverage. Are you a government employee or contractor involved in coronavirus testing or the wider public health response? Are you a doctor, nurse or health worker caring for patients? Have you worked on similar outbreaks in the past? Has the disease known as COVID-19 personally affected you or your family? Are you aware of new problems that are about to emerge, such as critical supply shortages? We need your tips, firsthand accounts, relevant documents or expert knowledge. Please contact us at coronavirus@reuters.com. We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how. | |
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| Human traffickers will profit from rising nationalism fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, the new United Nations expert on modern slavery said, warning that anti-migrant policies and rhetoric may prevent victims of exploitation from seeking help. Lockdowns and business closures worldwide are pushing many vulnerable workers - particularly migrant laborer's - into precarious jobs and slave labor, according to Tomoya Obokata, the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. | |
| | Immune system’s T cells play a role in attacking the coronavirus While the immune system's B cells make antibodies that block the novel coronavirus, its T cells provide another line of attack, according to new research. Researchers found that T cells from recovered patients can target the virus. That is promising news for vaccine developers because it is "consistent with normal, good, antiviral immunity," Shane Crotty, from the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, told Reuters. | |
Coronavirus can infect patients taking hydroxychloroquine Taking hydroxychloroquine for other medical conditions might not protect against the new coronavirus, French doctors say. The drug had nearly become a standard of care for patients with COVID-19 in many hospitals, even though randomized trials have not yet confirmed its value. But people around the world use decades-old hydroxychloroquine to treat malaria as well as inflammatory conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and researchers are seeing occasional cases of coronavirus infection in these patients despite long-term use of the drug. | |
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| Johnson & Johnson announced it would stop selling its talc Baby Powder in the United States and Canada, saying demand had dropped in the wake of what it called “misinformation” about the product’s safety amid a barrage of legal challenges. J&J faces more than 19,000 lawsuits from consumers and their survivors claiming its talc products caused cancer due to contamination with asbestos, a known carcinogen. Many are pending before a U.S. district judge in New Jersey. 7 min read | |
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended the Trump administration’s fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic and told senators he was willing to consider extending and modifying a payroll loan program for small businesses. Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the nearly $3 trillion in federal rescue programs rolled out over the past two months were working to support an economy devastated by the novel coronavirus. 5 min read | |
Five McDonald’s workers in Chicago filed a class action lawsuit against the chain, accusing it of failing to adopt government safety guidance on COVID-19 and endangering employees and their families. McDonald’s failed to provide adequate hand sanitizer, gloves and masks and has not notified its staff when an employee has become infected with the new coronavirus, according to a copy of the lawsuit provided by a spokesman for the workers. 2 min read | |
Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress said they were in no hurry to work on another coronavirus relief package, despite the House of Representatives’ passage last week of a $3 trillion measure. “We need to assess what we’ve already done, take a look at what worked and what didn’t work, and we’ll discuss the way forward in the next couple of weeks,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after President Donald Trump spoke to a Senate Republican luncheon. 2 min read | |
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