WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, April 2, 2020

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• Daily Damage Report.

• Global: 1,002,159 confirmed cases / 51,485 deaths (Johns Hopkins University)

• U.S. cases: 236,339 confirmed cases / 5,648 deaths

• Testing: More than 100,000 Americans are being tested daily for coronavirus. (Bloomberg)

• Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / The Guardian / CNN / CBS News / ABC News / CNBC / Wall Street Journal

1/ More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week – double the 3.3 million who applied the previous week. About 6% of the U.S. work force filed for jobless benefits in the last two weeks. In March, more than 10 million Americans lost their jobs, erasing nearly all the jobs created in the past five years. Economists say the real number of people out work is probably higher and that as many as 20 million people could be out of work this summer. The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, updated its economic projections and expects U.S. unemployment to exceed 10% in the second quarter – eclipsing the peak of the last recession – and gross domestic product to fall by more than 7%, or an annualized 28%. (Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / Bloomberg / New York Times / Politico / CNBC / CNN / CBS News / The Guardian)

• Food banks are reporting unprecedented demand across the U.S. as millions lose jobs with demand for aid increasing eightfold in some areas. (The Guardian)