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International News

Researchers double U.S. COVID-19 death forecast, citing eased restrictions

The latest forecast predicts the cumulative number of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 will run from as few as 95,092 to as many as 242,890 by Aug. 4 – with 134,475 lives lost representing the most likely, middle ground.

By comparison, the previous revision issued on April 29 put the middle-case figure at 72,400 deaths, within a range between 59,300 and 114,200 fatalities.

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COVID-19 Pandemic:“None of us is safe until all”says UN Chief

“Comprehensive, coordinated public health measures are critical to slow transmission and to save lives. But even countries that have taken such steps remain in jeopardy. And the virus is still likely to strike many countries that are least able to cope. In an interconnected world, none of us is safe until all of us are safe,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said

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Tens or 100s of billions? Insurers consult crystal balls on coronavirus costs

Losses could exceed $500 billion if state lawmakers require insurers to cover business-interruption claims for pandemic losses, former CNA Financial Corp Chief Executive Dennis Chookaszian told Reuters. Most policies exclude that risk, but insurers are facing lawsuits over it and eight U.S. states are considering laws to retroactively make insurers pay such claims.

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Trump administration pushing to rip global supply chains from China: officials

“We’ve been working on [reducing the reliance of our supply chains in China] over the last few years but we are now turbo-charging that initiative,” Keith Krach, undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the U.S. State Department told Reuters.

The pandemic has highlighted China’s key role in the supply chain for generic drugs here that account for the majority of prescriptions in the United States. It has also shown China’s dominance in goods like here the thermal cameras needed to test workers for fevers, and its importance in food supplies.

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Global coronavirus cases surpass 3.5 million amid underreporting fears

Globally, there were 74,779 new cases over the past 24 hours, according to the Reuters tally that is based on official government data, taking total cases to around 3.52 million.

“We could easily have a second or a third wave because a lot of places aren’t immune,” Collignon said, noting the world was well short of herd immunity, which requires around 60% of the population to have recovered from the disease.Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters

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Quarterly global InsurTech fundraising trend slashed by over 50%, COVID-19 a likely culprit:Willis Towers Watson

InsurTechs raised a total of US$912 million during the first three months of 2020.Deal count, at 96, was up 28% over Q4 2019, 10% more than the first quarter of that year. It is the highest number of investment rounds by transactional volume ever recorded by the Quarterly InsurTech Briefing.Overall total funding was down by 54 percent,  however, reflecting in part far fewer ‘mega-deals’ (US$100 million-plus deals) taking place in the year so far.

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