- Stranger Than Fiction
- Posts
- Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction
A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful
You can support my newsletter 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
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain tests positive for coronavirus. Johnson is currently in self-isolation and said he would continue to lead the government. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab would lead if Johnson could not.
Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 500,000. There were more than 537,000 confirmed cases of the disease known as Covid-19, with infections in the U.S. nearing 86,000 and outnumbering the 81,340 cases in mainland China.
Global numbers and fatalities have more than doubled in the past week. The cases are led by jumps in the U.S., Italy and Spain. More than 122,000 people have recovered from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins. They include its estimate of 753 recoveries in the U.S.
Pace of new cases in Italy is slowing. The number of coronavirus cases is still rising, but at the lowest day-on-day pace since the outbreak began. The poorest in the world are hardest hit by the impact of self-isolation, with little to subsist on during the crisis. Spain recorded the highest single-day death toll.
Futures are down for U.S. markets. The major U.S. indices have all closed solidly up for the past three days but futures point to a potential end to that rally. Yesterday, the Dow industrials finished the day up 6.4% following the vote in Congress to pass a COVID-19 rescue package, putting it back into bull-market territory, and ending an 11-trading day bear market for the index—the shortest in history for the Dow.
More job pain likely to come. The massive spike in unemployment reported yesterday is the start of what economists fear could result in 40 million Americans losing their jobs by mid-April.
Venezuelan President Maduro and other government officials were charged with drug trafficking. U.S. authorities offered multimillion-dollar rewards for their arrests, an escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to remove Maduro from office.
THE ELECTION
THE COMMENT
“America needs to finally get out of the business of linking health coverage to job status. Even in better times, this arrangement was a bad idea from a health perspective. Most Americans whose families depend on their employers for coverage are just a layoff away from being uninsured. And now, when many businesses are shutting down and considering layoffs, it’s a public health disaster. Across the country we’re seeing reports of layoffs in almost all industries. As we approach a global recession, some analysts suggest that a million or more US workers will lose their jobs in April alone. Consider what this means for health care in this country.” - Wendell Potter, former vice-president for corporate communications at Cigna and current president of Business for Medicare for All
THE STRANGEST
THE AV ROOM