Your Weekend Reading: Fear of a Second Wave

(Bloomberg) --

Normalcy remains a distant, perhaps unattainable dream. But in some places, coronavirus-induced restrictions are beginning to ease—despite stark warnings of the potential consequences. In the U.S., where more than 50,000 people have died from Covid-19, Georgia is already reopening for business (perhaps for this reason) and a Tennessee mayor faces a difficult choice. As the virus slowly recedes in some nations, the fear now is of a second wave.

What you’ll want to read this weekend

President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion bailout package that includes more money for small businesses. Trump’s dangerous idea on how to disinfect lungs prompted a disinfectant maker to state that “under no circumstance” should its products enter the human body. It’s another reminder of how his widely televised briefings can go sideways.

Life after ventilators can be brutal for Covid-19 survivors. Antibody treatments may be the best hope against the virus until there is a vaccine. Health-care workers have been attacked in Mexico and India. And could a herd-immunity strategy work in a country like India?

A meat shortage is coming, and shoppers are already facing food rationing. Farmers are starting to destroy their pigs, and the world’s biggest pork producer is fighting not just one highly contagious virus, but two.

Oil certainly had a week, and mom and pop piled in. Here’s what negative prices really mean. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he may set up a lending program for struggling U.S. oil companies.

Temperature checks. Empty public spaces. Constant anxiety. Bloomberg Businessweek goes inside the dystopian world of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic began. America’s always-on work culture has reached new heights, and Peloton is smiling. The perfect laboratory for studying the virus? Iceland.

What you’ll need to know next week

• The standing committee of China’s People’s Congress meets.
• The BOJ, Fed and ECB announce monetary-policy decisions.
• Tech giants, health-care companies and oil majors report earnings.
• Several countries, including the U.S., release GDP data.
• OPEC+ supply cuts are set to take effect.

What you’ll want to read in Bloomberg Hyperdrive

Higher fares, fewer routes, pre-flight health checks, less free food? The pandemic is ushering in a new era of air travel. At eerily empty airports, mask-wearing and social distancing already show a behavioral change among the few staff and travelers left. A long shakeup lies ahead, one that’s set to touch almost every aspect of flying.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.