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Refrigerated tractor trailers serve as temporary morgues in New York City The US has become the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day. Figures from Johns Hopkins University show 2,108 people died in the past 24 hours while there are now more than half a million confirmed infections. US death toll passes 2,000 in a single day The US could soon surpass Italy as the country with the most coronavirus deaths worldwide. But experts on the White House Covid-19 task force say the outbreak is starting to level off across the US. Dr Deborah Birx said there were good signs the outbreak was stabilising, but cautioned: "As encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak." President Donald Trump also said he expects the US to see a lower death toll than the initial predictions of 100,000 fatalities, adding: "We're seeing clear signs that our aggressive strategy is saving countless lives". In other developments: The World...

Some the biggest technology companies in the U.S. have agreed to pay wages for hourly employees impacted by the ongoing corporate response to the coronavirus outbreak. It’s the right thing for companies to do, from both a health and safety perspective, and to ensure that the hourly workers who are most impacted by work stoppages and shortages are not adversely affected by events that are beyond their control. As we reported earlier today, Facebook committed to pay its “contingent” workers. And according to a report in Axios, Amazon, Google and Twitter are joining them. We’ve reached out to Apple but have yet to receive a comment. In a statement to Axios, Amazon made the same commitment for its employees. “We will continue to pay all hourly employees that support our campus in Seattle and Bellevue – from food service, to security guards to janitorial staff – during the time our employees are asked to work from home,” the company said in a statement. “In addition, we will sub...

Exploiting a public health crisis for personal gain is the dastardly crime of our times. The research arm of security firm Check Point has found that cybercriminals around the globe have launched phishing and other malware deployment schemes that ride on people's thirst for information about the coronavirus. In its most recent report, it found that coronavirus-related websites created in January and February of this year are "are 50% more likely to be malicious" than other websites created in the same time period. That means that if you search for information about the coronavirus, you could stumble onto a website that has the sole aim of stealing your information. Criminals have also sent out email phishing campaigns purporting to contain coronavirus information. One campaign in Italy masqueraded as an official email from the World Health Organization. In truth, it contained a malicious attachment — and got sent to 10 percent of organizations within Italy. ...

The novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, spreads around the world, many companies are asking their staff to work from home. The boom in working remotely may prove temporary — even if the trend behind it is not — but having more staff operating away from traditional offices is having an impact on the tools that many companies use to coordinate and communicate while apart. Switching to a remote-work setup isn’t easy. Smartsheet’s Mark Mader told TechCrunch that the “challenge of remote work isn’t just about physical location,” continuing to say that it is “also about the need for people to feel connected and stay informed.” That means intelligent tooling, and smart workplaces norms and practices. (Mader also stressed low-code and no-code tooling as a possible way to empower remote workers). The remote-work boom was recently highlighted in Zoom’s earnings report. Its results bested expectations, and in its earnings call, the company said that it was seeing rising demand for...

Facebook  announced that it would further attempt to limit coronavirus-related chaos on its platform by banning commerce listings and advertisements for medical face masks. “We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency,” Facebook Director of Product Management Rob Leathern said in an update on Twitter. “We’ll start rolling out this change in the days ahead.” “We are temporarily banning advertisements and commerce listings that sell medical face masks,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Our teams are monitoring the COVID19 situation closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency.” Facebook will also limit any ads for medical products that imply a limited supply or create a sense of urgency among potential buyers, as well as ads that make guarantees for COVID-19 “cures” or prevention. Along with t...