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U.S.consumer spending presses ahead; declining income poses challenge

The extra unemployment checks are worth about $75 billion per month and accounted for nearly 5% of personal income in June. A staggering 30.2 million Americans were receiving unemployment checks in the week ending July 11. Though government welfare payments have been declining after jumping 110% in April, unemployment benefits increased 8.5% in June.
Consumers socked away $1.3 trillion over the last three months. Savings funded spending last month, pulling the saving rate down to a still-high 19% from 24.2% in May.

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Southeast Asia poverty to surge in ‘socio-economic crisis’:U.N.

“Without alternative income, formal social protection systems or savings to buffer these shocks, workers and their families will be pushed into poverty, reversing decades of poverty reduction.”
The region-wide economy was expected to contract by 0.4 per cent in 2020, it said, while remittances from Southeast Asians working abroad were likely to fall by 13 per cent or $10 billion.

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Gilead raises sales outlook to include COVID-19 treatment remdesivir

Demand for remdesivir continues to outstrip supply in many parts of the world.

Gilead’s chief executive, Daniel O’Day, on a conference call, said the company expects by the end of September to be producing enough remdesivir to meet real-time global demand.

Gilead said it still expects to manufacturer 2 million or more remdesivir treatment courses cumulatively in 2020, and its revenue outlook reflects expected sales of up to 1.5 million courses this year.

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Children carry COVID-19 virus, small study finds

Data on children as sources of coronavirus spread are sparse, and early reports did not find strong evidence of children as major contributors to the deadly virus that has killed 669,632 people globally.

Understanding the transmission potential in children will be key to developing public health guidelines, said the researchers who published the study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

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Indian mortality protection gap hits $16.5 trillion in 2019:Swiss Re study

Swiss Re has suggested that Indian life insurers should provide comprehensive rather than pure life products, bundle life cover with other small premium riders, such as accident, medical reimbursement and long-term care, simplify product design for better consumer understanding, sell or distribute simple bundled products through digital channel and use agent for more complex and expensive policies with savings element.

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More S.African insurers yield to customer demands to pay COVID BI claims

The FSCA and the Prudential Authority, which oversees the strength of the financial-services industry, last week struck a deal with insurers to consider once-off payments to help keep customers afloat, while courts decide whether insurers are correctly interpreting the terms of contracts.

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In Mumbai’s slums,over half of population probably infected with coronavirus,survey says

Suresh Kakani, an official at Mumbai’s civic body, said the results of the serological survey showed that the city may be inching towards herd immunity.
Around 65% of Mumbai’s 12 million people live in the cramped, airless slums, making for easy transmission of the disease. The survey found that only 16% of those living outside the slums had been exposed to the virus, the low proportion likely the result of social distancing and lockdowns.
About 57% of slum-dwellers have tested positive for antibodies for the coronavirus, from a random sample size of 7,000 people, according to the survey jointly conducted by Mumbai’s municipality, government think tank Niti Aayog and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

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