This article will speak about some significant news stories of the last few weeks that my staff have summarised below.
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Table of Contents
Global News Updates:
Covid-19 updates:
The total number of Covid-19 positive cases in the world by the time of providing these news updates are around 62.7 million.
The number of people that have been recovered worldwide are 40.1 million and the deaths related to Covid-19 are 1.46 million.
The spread of Covid-19 has been limited due to the lockdowns imposed in Europe:
Lockdowns and other necessary measures taken in some of the European countries have been able to reduce the rapid spread of Coronavirus.
However, it has been stated by the relevant authorities that the pressure faced by the hospitals won’t become normal anytime soon.
Germany – Germany started a partial lockdown on 2nd November which has been extended by Angela Merkel this week.
On the other hand, Lothar Wieler (head of Germany’s disease control agency), has said a few days ago that the confirmation of new cases related to the virus has decreased comparatively.
He also affirmed that the measures such as maintaining a social distance, wearing a mask, etc., have been proven to be effective for batting against the virus.
The health minister ‘Jens Spahn’ declared that this virus would take a lot more time than expected to come to an end. Adding to that, he said that if the cases were controlled in the same way, the people might be able to come out by the end of December or January.
France – Based on the latest report that was given on 28th November 2020, around 1,000 people died because of the Coronavirus, and approximately 12,500 new cases were recorded.
France is currently under lockdown, which is expected to be in effect until December 15. However, the situation might become a little easier than usual by this weekend.
The reproduction rate of the virus used to be 1% and has been controlled to become 0.65%.
Ireland – Ireland has taken all the preventive measures such as closing down the bars, restaurants, and other non-essential shops. People should not travel for a distance of more than 5 kilometers from their home.
These effective measures are proven to be somewhat effective as the infections have been reduced to 240 which used to be 1200 in the last month.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland states that all things will go back to normal within a short time span as little as a few weeks.
Spain – Spain is a country that was hugely impacted by the second wave of the virus in Europe.
However, the percentage of bars and restaurants in Madrid, which used to be 42% last month has deteriorated to 36% this week. this was somewhat helpful in reducing the positive test rate from 20% to 8%.
Czech Republic – Czech Republic returns to lock down on 22nd October but decided to reopen some elementary schools next week. it took such a crucial decision as the daily infection rate fell down to 6000 which used to be more than 10,000 before 2 weeks.
Italy – Italy as everyone might assume has once again recorded a significant amount of death rate. according to the stats obtained, there have been more than 640 deaths related to the Coronavirus in a single day which is on November 12th, 2020.
this happens to be the second-highest recorded death rate in a single day after Italy to come as you hit in the month of April. Additionally during the same time, around November 12th, 2020, there have been 37,978 new infections, which is comparatively 5000 new infections more than that were recorded a day earlier.
Some other small countries such as Austria, Belgium, etc., have also been taking significant measures so that they can also be able to reduce the new infections.
Other significant news about the Coronavirus:
- Turkey is known to be having a significant level of deaths for the seventh consistent day, which can be said as a record level.
- Lebanon is slowly starting to loosen the restrictions.
- New York starts to reopen schools in midst of the pandemic situation.
- Lockdown imposed on the people in Los Angeles County as there has been a considerable amount of increase in the Covid-19 cases.
- More than 2,000 deaths related to the virus were recorded during Tuesday and Wednesday, last week.
US Elections:
Almost every person in the world is familiar with the elections going on in the USA. Therefore, we will have a brief, yet, detailed look at the information related to the elections in the USA.
Joe Biden stands out in the lead with 306 votes and Donald Trump has got 232 votes.
The actual votes required to win an election (for president) in the USA is actually 270. Even though Biden has got more votes than he actually requires, the certification process has to be completed.
This certification process will make Biden’s victory an official one and furthermore eliminate the chances available for Trump to deny his downfall.
If the states are able to resolve all the disputes and affirm the results, then the official confirmation will be done by December 8.
Therefore, after 2 weeks after the confirmation process and resolution of issues, it is expected that Joe Biden will most probably swear as the 46th president of the United States of America.
Important things to consider about Pfizer’s Coronavirus vaccine:
- Even though it has performed very well in the clinical trials, there might be some variation of the performance of the vaccine in real life.
However, the results are quite effective and most medical professionals find it to 90% effective against the dangerous virus.
As it might not reach out to the expectations of many people, it might still perform well than most people have actually expected.
- Nonetheless, there were some common side effects with the vaccine such as fever, chills, fatigue, sore hands, etc., which weren’t considered to be severe side effects.
One specific thing that has to be considered is that there isn’t enough amount of information available about certain questions related to the virus.
Some examples of such specific questions include the specific time period that the vaccine will stay effective, the potency of the vaccine against the severity of the virus, the contagiousness of the disease after vaccination, etc.
To clear some issues related to the type of ethnic background in which the vaccine will be effective, the vaccine was proven to be effective in people from various ethnic backgrounds.
- It is expected that Pfizer would ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the vaccine in case of emergencies. Adding to that, it has been stated that the first set of recipients will receive the dose of vaccine before 2021.
Furthermore, Pfizer is expected to create enough vaccines i.e., 50 million doses, which would be enough to treat up to 25 million people.
On the other hand, Pfizer has made an agreement with England that would provide 10 million doses to the country.
- As most people might assume, providing vaccines to people all over the world is not at all an easy task. Moreover, this vaccine will be even more difficult to be provided to all.
These doses of the vaccine should be stored at -70 degrees Celsius or -94 degrees Fahrenheit, which is usually much colder than normal freezers.
In order to deal with this, Pfizer is making shipping containers in order to keep the vaccine at the required temperature. It might be a huge problem to transport the vaccine to remote areas.
- Pfizer’s vaccine is a totally new approach to fight against the Coronavirus.
Usually, in most cases, vaccines consist of a weakened or dead virus, when injected into the body will create antibodies and fight against the actual virus.
To most people’s surprise, this is not the same in the case of Pfizer’s vaccine as it tends to deliver genetic guidelines for Coronavirus. When injected, the muscle cells of a human body will produce the virus by themselves.
Pfizer has created this technology by associating with its German partner, ‘BioNTech’. There is yet another vaccine developed by US biotech company ‘Moderna’, which is almost at the end of the clinical trials.
- Entire population of the world might not be able to rely on Pfizer’s vaccine alone. Even though the company might be able to produce 1.3 billion doses in the next year as they stated, it would still be short on the global demand.
Companies such as Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, etc., have been showing effective results while nearing the end of clinical trials.
Along with that, biotech companies from countries like Russia, China, India, etc., are also in the late-stage trials and might be expected to have a vaccine ready by next year.
- According to the WHO (World Health Organization), there are 47 candidates that are involved in the human testing stage for the Coronavirus, while 155 more candidates are in the stage of lab evaluation.
Moderna:
US-based biotech company Moderna is seeking authorization to make use of the vaccine that they have manufactured in emergency cases.
Along with that, Moderna also reports that the efficiency of the vaccine is around 94.1%, which is also 100% percent efficient in severe cases.
Elon Musk is now the second wealthiest person in the world right after Jeff Bezos:
Everyone nowadays is familiar with Elon Musk, ‘The Man, The Myth, The Legend’. For people who don’t know much about him, he is an entrepreneur, businessman, engineer, and a man of many other talents.
Musk is the CEO, lead designer of SpaceX, CEO & architect of the automobile company Tesla, founder of PayPal, and The Boring Company, among other achievements.
Now, he has also become the second wealthiest person in the world by overtaking Bill Gates in the race to be the richest person on the planet. On 24th November, Musk added $7.2 billion to his net worth after a surge in the company Tesla.
This made the second richest person on the planet by having approximately $128 billion. In recent weeks, Musk has overtaken other people in the list of the people such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault.
Now, the person that stands between Elon Musk and the number one position in the list of wealthiest persons is Jeff Bezos, who currently has a total wealth of $182 billion.
The primary advantage of Elon Musk to have had an increase in his significant wealth is the rise of tech companies, which grasped more market share of the economy.
As the tech companies had a significant improvement, Tesla’s shares have had a surge of more than 500% making the company’s value standing at $500 billion.
Musk owns 18 percent of the total shares in the company and because of that, he made $100 billion with the help of this surge.
It might not even be a wonder if Musk takes over the first position by overtaking Jeff Bezos in a year or two.
GDP Growth Rate in the USA:
The US economy increased by an annual percentage of 33.1% in the third quarter of 2020. It happens to be the biggest ever growth rate after a drastic fall of 31.4% in the second quarter of 2020.
However, the current GDP rate is still considered as low, comparatively 3.5% lower, when compared to the situation of the country before the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
Adding to that, around 22 million jobs were recovered out of the jobs that were lost due to the Covid-19 situation.
Financial News Updates:
S&P Global in the end stage of discussions for buying HIS Markit for a price ranging around $44 billion:
S&P Global Inc is in the stage of having advanced talks for buying the brit company HIS Markit Ltd for an amount of $44 billion in a transaction which would consist of two major data providers.
This deal, if made, would be considered the largest transaction made in this year and the decision might be made in a few days, if not next week.
This company was formed after US-based HIS obtained Britain-based Markit Ltd in the year 2016, and involves in a diversified set of businesses varies from selling data about automotive industries and tech companies to publishing Jane’s Defence Weekly.
According to the calculations depicted by Reuters, HIS has a market value of $36.88 billion as per the stock’s last close on 28th November 2020.
‘No-deal Brexit would be considered a bad example’ says German Chancellor Angela Merkel:
On Monday (November 30, 2020), German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that Britain and the EU (European Union) would be making a bad decision if they fail in making a deal for maintaining their future relations.
However, she also told firmly that the EU won’t be interested in making a deal at any cost.
Going into the story, the UK has left the EU on January 31, yet it remained a member of the 27-nation bloc’s economic hold for an 11-month transition period.
The main objective of this transition period is to negotiate the terms for a free-trade deal between the UK and EU, which will come into effect on January 1, 2020.
November was the deadline for the agreement so that the agreement can be approved by the lawmakers in both Britain and the EU by the end of this year.
However, the situation got elevated as Britain angered the EU by making a bill that breaches the withdrawal agreement, which is legally bound. The internal market bill made by the UK grants it the power to overrule the trade with Northern Ireland.
Germany is currently the EU’s rotating president and Merkel has given the statements mentioned earlier on behalf of the EU.
She also stated that the deal is desirable by the EU, but in case of such decisions, the EU will take any necessary measures.
If things go south, from January 1st, tariffs and other sorts of barriers will be imposed on UK-EU trades. Even though it is disadvantageous for both sides, Britain will be impacted more.
However, the final decision will be made after the last phase of negotiations.
Tesla gets approval to start selling the ‘made-in-Shanghai’ model Tesla Model Y SUV:
Currently, Tesla sells the Model 3 cars in China and is now focusing on building more car manufacturing capacities for the manufacture of Tesla Model Y SUV.
Permission has been obtained by Tesla for selling Shanghai made Tesla Model Y SUV in China. This approval has been posted on November 30, 2020, by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on its website.
The company began exporting Chinese-made Model 3 cars to Europe and last week planned to start manufacturing electric vehicle chargers in China in the year 2021.
Disney to dismiss 4,000 additional employees because of the impact of Covid-19 situation:
Walt Disney Co. has made an announcement stating that it will lay off 4,000 employees because of the huge financial impact made by Coronavirus in the world.
This announcement has been made by Disney in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that took place earlier this week.
This means, in the first half of the year 2021, over 32,000 employees will lose their positions that they currently have in parks, experiences, and product divisions.
Actually, Disney stated in September 2020, that 28,000 employees will be removed from their jobs in theme parks. This number has been increased to 32,000 and will come into effect before the last week of the first half.
The United Kingdom will borrow 400 billion pounds to reduce the impact of the Coronavirus:
Despite being the sixth-largest economy in the world, the UK is now going to shrink 11.3% in 2020, which is the heaviest impact after ‘The Great Frost’ in the year 1709.
Therefore, Britain now will borrow an amount of 400 billion pounds in order to cope with the economic crisis and financial impact due to the Covid-19 situation as stated by the finance minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak.
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency is ready to be launched by January 2021:
Libra, which is an association based in Libra, will issue and govern plans that are related to Libra to launch a digital currency that will be backed by the dollar.
Getting into the story, Libra cryptocurrency is getting ready to be launched with a short time span as little as before January 2021.
Covid-19 has resulted in a loss of employment for almost 778,000:
As most businesses are closed as a result of the pandemic situation, around 778,000 people have lost their jobs.
People that are receiving unemployment benefits have increased to 6.1 million, which used to be 1.7 million in the previous year.
Other Considerable Updates:
Asian stocks and US Futures are traded at a higher rate on Tuesday as investors waved off an instant slide in the equities, and once again got interested in the risk assets after an unparallel month of gains.
The dollar, on the other hand, took a fall. Shares had significant growth in Japan, Australia, and South Korea.
After having dropped heavily for more than a week, S&P 500 Futures have advanced.
Gold had a significant amount of loss, while Bitcoin had a drastic fall that is considered as record level high fall. In many other places, Oil prices had a huge decline.
The pace picked up in finding a vaccine for the Coronavirus has boosted the confidence levels among many investors for gaining returns as a result of increasing economic growth, which can be expected after the discovery of the vaccine.
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