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Universities in the U.S. canceling in-person classes this week demonstrated how difficult it may be to return to a "normal" education anytime soon. The coronavirus continues to spread rapidly, infecting more than 5.5 million Americans as of this morning, and public health officials and infectious disease experts fear the outbreak will only get worse in the fall and winter. We have the latest on school reopenings and more in today's newsletter.
| | California residents face dual crises with coronavirus and wildfires | For California residents, it can feel like they're playing a game of apocalypse bingo. The state has been dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic for months, and is now also facing heat waves, lightning strikes and record wildfires. The combination means some parts of the state now have some of the worst air quality in the world. We spoke with people suffering from asthma who are now confined to their homes and doctors who are anxious about the public health impact of a contagious virus coupled with pollution. The situation is also dire for restaurant owners, who only recently opened up outdoor dining and are now shutting down as smoke fills the horizon and ash litters their tables. Read more.
–Chrissy Farr | | | | Students are heading back to campus and so is the coronavirus | Some of colleges that planned to welcome students back for the fall semester reversed their decisions this week as the coronavirus spread rapidly on some campuses. The University of Notre Dame announced Tuesday that it was pausing in-person undergraduate classes for at least two weeks, following a steep rise in cases that officials linked to off-campus parties just one week into the fall semester. Less than an hour later, Michigan State University said it was pivoting to an online-only fall for undergrads before they arrive on campus, telling students who planned to live in dorms to stay home. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill halted in-person classes for the fall, only a week after they began, citing a spike in infections. The swift turnaround underscores the challenges of welcoming students back to campus during the pandemic that caused colleges in March to cancel in-person instruction and ride out the academic period remotely. Read more.
—Will Feuer, Kevin Stankiewicz | | | | Trump pushes for universities to reopen | Speaking of school, President Donald Trump urged universities to welcome students back this fall despite the recent climb in Covid-19. "We have learned one thing, there's nothing like campus there's nothing like being with a teacher as opposed to being on a computer board," Trump said at a White House press briefing. "The iPads are wonderful but you're not going to learn the same way as being there." Read more.
–Noah Higgins-Dunn | | | | Even with vaccine, schools likely years away from 'normal' | As schools consider whether it's safe to reopen, medical experts told me it could take years before students and teachers can return to in-person learning safely without masks, social distancing and other measures intended to curb the spread of the virus. A combination of herd immunity, a Covid-19 vaccine and good hygienic practices are needed to bring the virus down to low enough levels and allow schools to safely return to normal, they said. It will be difficult to return to school "in the absence of protective measures like masks, social distancing and washing hands," Yanzhong Huang of Seton Hall University told me. "I don't think the vaccine itself will be a magic bullet." Read more.
–Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | | | The U.S. has already invested billions in potential coronavirus vaccines | The Trump administration has already struck deals with a handful of pharmaceutical giants that have topped roughly $10.79 billion as part of Operation Warp Speed, a program led by several departments within the federal government to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines and treatments to fight the coronavirus. The investments are part of the federal government's goal of providing at least 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January 2021. Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and BioNTech, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, Novavax and AstraZeneca have all received funding from the operation for their vaccines. Here's where the deals stand. Read more.
–Noah Higgins-Dunn | | @Work Spotlight | September 23, 2020
Balancing Current Challenges with Future Opportunities
In today's uncertain business climate, there is a focus on cost containment to weather the storm, but also a need for executives position their organizations for future growth. The CNBC @Work CFO Spotlight will examine how top finance leaders are successfully striking this balance. We'll discuss: lessons learned during the current crisis that can be applied permanently; the strategies, data and automation tools that can be leveraged to help manage uncertainty and lead to a stronger post-crisis posture; how to effectively engage employees, customers, and investors; and much more.
Featuring Synchrony CEO Margaret Keane, Synchrony CFO Brian Wenzel and more. | |
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