- Stranger Than Fiction
- Posts
- Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction
A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful
I helped to create a great new newsletter for WSJ that is sent every Saturday. I think you’ll really enjoy it, it’s called Notes on the News. Check it out here.You can support the newsletter that you’re reading right now using PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, or purchase a subscription on Substack.Don’t forget to join us in the Stranger Slack for access to source documents and a running feed of news throughout the day.
TOP NEWS
COVID-19 is expected to have caused the largest economic contraction in over a decade. Today we will get an insight into the impact on economic production from COVID-19, when first-quarter U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy are released. The number is expected to show the economy contracted 3.5% in the first three months of this year. Yesterday, confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassed 1 million.
Companies are beginning to report their first earnings since COVID-19 showing the financial damage to their businesses. Ford said it lost $1.99 billion in the first quarter and expects further losses next quarter. Starbucks said global same-store sales fell 10%, the first time that number has declined in over a decade.
Testing capacity for COVID-19 is uneven, leading some labs with testing ability to go unused. Some labs across the country say they are processing less than a quarter of the diagnostic tests for COVID-19. Lab executives point to fragmented supply chains, relatively strict test guidelines, incompatible electronic systems and a lack of centralized data on where capacity exists.
Most Americans cannot or will not use an app tracking COVID-19. Nearly 3 in 5 Americans say they are either unable or unwilling to use the infection-alert apps under development by Google and Apple. A major source of skepticism about the infection-tracing app is distrust of Google, Apple and tech companies generally.
WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO
🎧 An audio tour of businesses in Georgia... one of the first states to reopen its economy amid the pandemic.
If you need to negotiate payment on your bills, here’s how to do it.
THE COMMENT
“We have university laboratories around this country that have the ability to run 1,000 or 3,000 tests per day, yet many of them are nowhere near capacity,” said Michael Pellini, managing partner of venture fund Section 32 and a contributor to the Rockefeller Foundation’s national Covid-19 testing action plan. “We need to make sure they’re utilized.”
THE STRANGEST
THE AV ROOM