What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Vaccine developers pledge to uphold testing rigor
Nine leading U.S. and European vaccine developers pledged on Tuesday to uphold the scientific standards that their experimental immunizations will be held against, amid a hurried global race to contain the pandemic.
The companies, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, in a joint statement, made a “historic pledge... to uphold the integrity of the scientific process as they work towards potential global regulatory filings and approvals of the first COVID-19 vaccines”.
The unusual move to promise to play by well-established rules underlines a highly politicized debate over what action is needed to quickly rein in the spread of the deadly disease and to jumpstart global business and trade.
Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map.

‘Don’t kill your gran’
British ministers and medics are urging the public to get serious again about the coronavirus after a sharp rise in infections raised fears the outbreak was slipping out of control in some places.
Close to 3,000 new cases were recorded on Sunday and again on Monday - a sudden jump from daily numbers much closer to 1,000 for most of August, and the highest since May.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said young people had become too relaxed about social distancing and could endanger older relatives through complacency.
“Don’t kill your gran by catching coronavirus and then passing it on. And you can pass it on before you’ve had any symptoms at all,” he told a BBC radio program aimed at younger audiences.
South Korea battles second wave
Thousands of trainee doctors in South Korea returned to work after ending a more than two-week strike as the country grappled with sustained three-digit rises in new daily coronavirus infections.
The Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 136 new cases as of midnight on Monday, after the rate fell to a three-week low of 119 a day earlier. The total infections rose 21,432, with 341 deaths.
The daily tally has steadily dropped since it reached a peak of 441 last month after the government imposed unprecedented social distancing rules to blunt a second wave of outbreaks from churches and political rallies.
Efforts to curb the latest epidemic have been complicated by the strike launched on Aug. 21 by some 16,000 intern and resident doctors against the government’s medical reform proposals.
China’s Xi honors COVID-19 ‘heroes’
President Xi Jinping honored the “heroes” of China’s “people’s war” against COVID-19 at a ceremony on Tuesday, lauding the country’s resilience as well as the decisive role played in containment efforts by the ruling Communist Party.
Defying charges from the United States and elsewhere that early failures enabled the coronavirus pandemic to spread more quickly, Xi said that China acted in an open and transparent manner throughout, and took decisive actions that saved lives.
Xi awarded Zhong Nanshan, the senior medical adviser and coronavirus expert who helped shape China’s COVID-19 response, with a Medal of the Republic, the country’s highest honor.
There was no mention of Li Wenliang, the doctor who was punished for spreading information about a new infectious disease in Wuhan, and whose death from COVID-19 in February sparked nationwide outrage.
School closures could hit output for generations
Disruption to schooling stemming from the COVID-19 epidemic will cause a skill loss that could result in a 1.5% drop in global economic output for the rest of this century, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated.
For the United States, that would represent an economic loss of $15.3 trillion, the OECD said in a report published on Tuesday, with the bill rising higher still if disruption to education extended into the next academic year.
“Learning loss will lead to skill loss, and the skills people have relate to their productivity,” the report said, explaining the forecast drop in global GDP.
Governments around the world closed schools to curb the spread of COVID-19, in most cases for around 10 weeks, or one third of a year of schooling.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: China exits, Singapore, Cycles.
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources.
Are you a government employee or contractor involved in coronavirus testing or the wider public health response? Are you a doctor, nurse or health worker caring for patients? Have you worked on similar outbreaks in the past? Has the disease known as COVID-19 personally affected you or your family? Are you aware of new problems that are about to emerge, such as critical supply shortages?
We need your tips, firsthand accounts, relevant documents or expert knowledge. Please contact us at [email protected].
We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how.

Top Stories

Exclusive: Ill-timed bets on rising demand have Exxon Mobil Corp facing a shortfall of about $48 billion through 2021, according to a Reuters tally and Wall Street estimates, a situation that will require the top U.S. oil company to make deep cuts to its staff and projects. Wall Street investors are even starting to worry about the once-sacrosanct dividend at Exxon, which in the 20th Century became the world’s most valuable company using global scale, relentless expansion and strict financial controls.

Police broke up scuffles between supporters of President Donald Trump and Black Lives Matter activists and arrested two people in Salem, Oregon, on Monday as protests in the region turn increasingly violent. More than 100 Trump supporters, including members of the all-male, alt-right group the Proud Boys, came to the capitol building in Salem, about 45 miles (72 km) south of Portland, in a caravan of vehicles on Monday afternoon, waving Trump 2020 signs and American flags and some carrying weapons.

The U.S. power industry would struggle to meet presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s proposed mandate that it become carbon neutral by 2035 without some big breakthroughs in clean energy technology, according to a Reuters analysis of planning documents and a survey of top utilities. The country’s top power producers said rapid advances in nascent technologies - such as batteries to store power for lean times, carbon capture to trap waste from fossil fuels and advanced nuclear power - will be critical to reaching net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.

When polls closed in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race in November 2018, initial results from in-person voting showed Republican Martha McSally in the lead. Her advantage evaporated in the days that followed with the tallying of postal ballots. “Electoral corruption - call for a new election?” President Donald Trump posted on Twitter at the time. His suggestion had no effect, and McSally conceded to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema six days after Election Day.

Special report

JBS SA, the world’s largest meatpacker, has vowed to keep the world fed during the coronavirus pandemic. Executives say the company has added more than 15,000 new workers in Brazil this year to crank out cuts of chicken, pork and beef, a lot of it for export. The meat giant’s $629 million second-quarter net profit was almost twice what analysts expected.