“Herd immunity” in one region of the Italy once the epicenter of the pandemic

According to Worldometers’ statistics, 16 countries — the United States, Brazil, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, India, Italy, Peru, Germany, Iran, Turkey, France, Chile, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — have reached 100,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally.
More than 10,000 deaths have occurred in seven countries – the United States, Brazil, Spain, The United Kingdom, Italy, France and Mexico.

United States: The first states to reopen are reporting a surge in cases and hospitalizations as states push to reopen their doors further.
Confirmed cases have been rising steadily across the COUNTRY since the Memorial Day weekend.

Some officials point to increased testing as the reason for the increase in cases, but hospitalization data are not entirely dependent on testing.
Earlier this week, CNBC reported that Texas had reported a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations for two days in a row, and Arizona was also reporting an increase in hospitalizations.

Dow Jones said three coVID-19 vaccine trials are planned in the US.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the U.S. trial of Pivotal, a coVID-19 vaccine candidate, will be launched this summer.
The GOVERNMENT says the final phase of Moderna trials will begin in July, followed by vaccine trials by Johnson & Johnson and Astrazeneca.

Britain’s Health secretary: Britain could not have dealt with coronavirus without the tech giant. One of the contracts showed Palantir charging just £1 ($1.27) for access to health data.

“Without the support of technology companies, we wouldn’t have been able to deal with the epidemic, and we wouldn’t have been able to deal with it in the way that we could,” Hancock said in an online speech at the CogX UK technology conference.

Britain is one of the worst affected countries and the government has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the outbreak.
Nearly 50,000 people have died in the UK and more than 290,000 have been infected with COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins university.

Indonesia reported the highest single-day peak for several days in a row

Indonesia saw the biggest increase for a second straight day with 1,241 new infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 34,316, Reuters reported.
The country of 260 million people reported a record 1,043 new cases on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Rice prices soared last week after some regional officials in the Southeast Asian country began easing restrictions.
The country resumed domestic air travel on Monday, but with some modifications.
The country also reported 36 deaths from COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,959, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Moody’s: A no-deal Brexit would seriously damage the UK’s post-epidemic economic recovery

Moody’s warned in a report that a no-deal Brexit would “severely damage the UK economy,” especially as the country suffers its worst recession in nearly a century following the coronavirus pandemic.

While such an outcome is not moody’s current baseline forecast, it said it was “increasingly likely”.
The report comes as Britain and the EU remain short of a common deal in post-Brexit negotiations.

The UK has so far refused to extend the current transition beyond the end of 2020, despite the uncertainty the coronavirus pandemic has created for the UK and EU economies.

“By the end of 2020, when no deal Brexit happens, the UK economy will still be significantly smaller than Moody’s predicted before the outbreak.”
It will also be less resilient, with public debt and unemployment rising and investment lower than expected before the outbreak, Moody’s said.

Moody’s said its underlying assumption remained that the UK and EU would reach an agreement by the end of the year, “albeit a limited one focused on trade in goods”.
But the risks of a no-deal outcome are rising.

Sampling test: Italy’s Bergamo achieves’ herd immunity ‘

In March, Italy became the first country in Europe to suffer a major outbreak, while the northern province of Bergamo was the “epicentre” of the outbreak.

According to the latest Italian data, as of June 10, Italy had 236,000 confirmed cases nationwide, while Lombardy region, including Bergamo province, had more than 90,000 confirmed cases.
There have been 34,043 deaths in Italy and 16,319 in the Lombardy region.

The latest sample test in bergamo province showed that blood tests of 9,965 inhabitants of bergamo province between 23 April and 3 June showed that 57 per cent of the population had covid-19 antibodies indicating exposure to the coronavirus.

The results are based on a “random” sample that is “broad enough” to reliably indicate the actual situation in the province, the Health department in Bergamo said.

Some scientists think that when 60-65% of a region’s population has antibodies, it is generally assumed that the region has reached “herd immunity” levels.
Apparently bergamo province is now quite close to that level.

However, herd immunity has always faced great controversy in terms of science and ethics, and countries such as the UK and Sweden that have considered implementing the strategy have also been criticized.

The south Korean military command now has a cluster of covid-19 infections

The Ministry of Defense (DOD) confirmed Wednesday that four more officers from the MILITARY Security Support Command (MSSC) under the MINISTRY of Defense (DOD) had tested positive for irus.
The Department of Defense said an officer of the Military Security Support Command confirmed Wednesday a novel Coronavirus infection. A contact subsequently tested positive for four of his co-workers.

All members of the Military Security Support Command will be tested.
“After (the Military Security Support Command) confirmed the first case on September 9, we tested 77 people who came into contact with him and found four more cases,” a defense ministry official said.