This article is a preview of The Logic’s Daily Briefing newsletter, sent every weekday.

Get complimentary access to award-winning reporting to navigate these unprecedented times. Sign up now.

It’s day 84 since Canada’s 100th coronavirus case. The number of cases is 92,393 as of publication time, up 688 since yesterday—a 17 per cent decrease from the seven-day prior average of new cases. On their respective 84th day, U.S. daily new cases were down 13 per cent from the seven-day prior average; the U.K. was down 19 per cent in daily new cases from the seven-day prior; and in Italy, new cases were down nine per cent.*

Keeping a two-metre distance and wearing masks are effective ways of reducing the spread of COVID-19, according to the most comprehensive study of viral transmission to date published in The Lancet.

Cross-country checkup: Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced nine members for his Industry Strategy Council, set up to advise on sector-specific policies for the COVID-19 economic recovery effort. They include John Baker, CEO of edtech firm D2L, and five members of Bains’s existing Economic Strategy Tables. The original advisory groups delivered their reports in September 2018, but Ottawa has yet to implement many of their recommendations, members told The Logic. 

Hospitals in Ontario neglected to tell public health officials about 700 positive COVID-19 tests for weeks, citing a mix-up over whose responsibility it was to disclose the results. As such, thousands of people who were in contact with those who tested positive were not traced or informed of their risks, which may have worsened the spread of the virus. The federal government has ordered 37 million syringes as it prepares for mass vaccination against the virus. 

In the markets: All major North American indices closed up Wednesday despite widespread protests and a number of negative macroeconomic indicators. The Candian dollar continued its strong run to 73.89 cents U.S. in late afternoon trading. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office said GDP in that country could take until 2029 to recover, and the Atlanta Federal Reserve projected that second-quarter GDP would fall almost 53 per cent. Macy’s is keeping some stores closed because of the protests, following similar moves yesterday by Apple, Walmart, CVS and Target. The stock-market rise is partially due to algorithms. It’s not the first time stocks have had a strong run despite widespread social unrest. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and mass protests rocked the U.S. all year. The S&P 500 ended the year with a price gain of 7.6 per cent.

Global stocks also fared well, with benchmark indices in Japan, China, Europe and Australia all up. The rise came, in part, from China reporting better-than-expected manufacturing data and Germany indicating it may roll out a second stimulus package. Not all countries are faring well, though. Foreign investors pulled US$11.8 billion from Brazil’s stock market between February and May, as President Jair Bolsonaro continues to shrug off the seriousness of COVID-19. International Monetary Fund officials are calling on Argentina to improve its debt-restructuring offer. 

“I think that perspective, as we go through things like the pandemic or we see the challenges across our nation or across the world, we recognize that we all face them together”: Speaking from the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Robert Behnken hopes the world will take inspiration from the successful launch of SpaceX’s first capsule, which he said required “cooperation with our international partners, with our commercial partners.”

Trace me on my cellphone: Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the federal government’s contact-tracing app recommendation may take some time, saying that “some jurisdictions prefer” the manual contact tracing already being done. Privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien told a House of Commons committee last week that he has not yet been consulted on an app. Meanwhile, France released its contact-tracing app StopCovid today after it was approved by lawmakers last week. Unlike Italy and Switzerland, France has chosen to not use Google and Apple’s technology; here is how its app works. 

Bay Street to Main Street: Air Canada raised $1.6 billion to bolster its working capital as the airline adapts to the collapse in passenger demand. The raise brings Air Canada’s cash total to about $9.7 billion while it burns about $22 million daily. The firm is eliminating the jobs of about 20,000 employees as it braces for a slow recovery. “This important financing will allow us to keep our strong relative position and better manage debt leverage and risk as government restrictions are lifted and the market recovers,” said Michael Rousseau, Air Canada’s chief financial officer. 

• Ontario defined-benefit pension plans’ solvency ratio dropped in the first quarter, from a 99 per cent ratio at the end of 2019 to 85 per cent. 
• The Canada Revenue Agency is requesting tips about fraud in COVID-19 government support programs. 
• Canada’s large banks are preparing for significant losses on loans to energy firms as the oil sector struggles with low prices.
• Walmart is closing its Tire, Lube and Express businesses in stores in Canada in an attempt to increase its online growth. The move affects 106 stores nationwide and about 550 employees, although Walmart said it will retrain most of those staff. 
• A Quebec plaintiff has launched a class action against Tesla, alleging the Model 3 has paint-chipping and -peeling issues. 

Crowdsourcing the crisis: The Toronto Outdoor Art Fair has launched a fundraiser called Gift of Hearts to help artists make an income during the pandemic. Interested people can make a tax-deductible donation, the amount of which will be given as a giftcard to frontline workers who can then buy a piece of art.

Postcard from Montreal: Sylvain Carle was senior developer advocate at Twitter and general manager at Montreal startup accelerator FounderFuel, and co-founded and been CTO of several startups. Since 2014, he had been a partner at Montreal’s Real Ventures, which has helped seed some 2,000 companies. But he recently announced his decision to leave the firm—and the venture capital world—to focus his attention on the fight against climate change.

“I made the decision to leave pre-COVID. This has been an ongoing conversation with my partners,” he said. “I’ve been at Real for six years now, and we generally have pretty good consensus. I really wanted to have environmental and social impacts more specifically addressed in the things we do, but it wasn’t the main concern of my partners. It wasn’t a major disagreement, but it became a moment of reflection for me. If I want to do this, it’s probably not going to happen here.

“One day last year, I was in my office on Sherbrooke Street and people started flowing by. It was the climate march last year, and I just jumped in. I met people from the tech industry there, and a few months later, we did an AI hackathon for climate change at the Mila Institute. It was interesting to see that a lot of the AI researchers want to do this kind of research. They don’t want their work to go into drones for the army.

“I want to bring impact investments to all the things I take for granted in Montreal—data, algorithms, machine learning—so that they have an environmental impact, and I don’t mean 15 to 20 years and $100 million to start the first prototype. We have to change the course of climate change, but also prepare and mitigate the consequences of it. [COVID-19] makes it real that a global crisis can erupt so fast and we are not prepared for it.” 

Drinking from the firehose: 

• The European Commission is considering new rules to review and potentially block rivals found to be receiving unfair foreign government subsidies from acquiring European companies. 
• Rents in San Francisco and Silicon Valley dropped precipitously year over year in May. The cost of a one-bedroom apartment was down 14.3 per cent in Cupertino, where Apple is headquartered, and 15.9 per cent lower in Google’s home city Mountain View. 
• Online retailer Stitch Fix is laying off 1,400 staff in California, about 18 per cent of its workforce; the firm plans to eventually hire 2,000 new employees in cities with lower costs of living. 
• Starbucks is reducing workers’ hours further, as it anticipates business to remain slow until at least the fall. 

Around the world: The World Economic Forum is proceeding with plans to hold its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January. New Zealand will lift all restrictions next week. Hu Weifeng, a Wuhan doctor who worked with coronavirus whistleblower Li Wenliang died of the virus last week, becoming China’s first COVID-19 fatality in weeks. Chinese officials reportedly delayed sharing the genetic map of the coronavirus and other data with the World Health Organization for weeks. Singapore reopened some schools and businesses today after a two-month lockdown. Indonesia has cancelled the Hajj pilgrimage; 221,000 people were expected to attend. A technical glitch in the U.S. government system caused hundreds of small businesses to receive relief loans twice or more; roughly US$116 million is trying to be recovered.

“Conga-line Parliament”: The British government ordered all lawmakers to attend parliament to vote on a motion mandating in-person voting. To do so, members stood in a kilometre-long queue to enter the chamber one by one—a process that took 45 minutes.

* We’re emphasizing new cases, rather than running totals, because “flattening the curve” is when each day’s new cases are fewer than those of the previous day. The percentage increase is determined based on how today’s cases compare to a rolling seven-day prior average. Numbers may also vary based on countries’ individual testing capacity and reporting.

***

Our reporting team is working tirelessly around the clock to deliver the very latest information on the COVID-19 crisis. If you like our journalism, please consider subscribing. You can get a subscription today for more than $100 off your first year.