fortune--2020-08-02--Working from home poses serious dangers for employers and employees alike

A few years ago, when I, as an outside consultant, was leading a time management workshop at an all-virtual company’s in-person annual retreat, I noticed something: these people were working a lot. Time logs chronicled late night email sessions. One employee—who’d mentioned wanting more time to play with her dog—had hired a dog walker because, despite working from home, she didn’t think she could take a break to go outside with her pet. As I began doing workshops with more all-virtual companies, I noticed this same phenomenon. Many remote workers had no boundaries protecting non-working time. Needless to say, their stress levels reflected this.
I was thinking of that forlorn dog owner as the COVID-19 pandemic forced whole organizations to go virtual overnight in March. Remote work has grown rapidly—up 159% in the last 12 years, per an early 2020, pre-lockdown report from FlexJobs—but there’s long been resistance to it. Push managers for an explanation and you’ll eventually get some version of this: How do I know people won’t watch Netflix all day?
But Netflix isn’t the real danger. The real danger is that without a physical separation between work and the rest of life, people won’t ever stop working—risking burnout, which has huge costs for employees and their organizations. Wise managers address this, rather than worrying that people will slack the second they aren’t being watched.
It’s hard to quantify this fear of slacking, but consider this: One Gallup poll in mid-March found that only 31% of U.S. workers had ever worked remotely, despite a majority of workers saying in various polls that they would like to do so occasionally. By the beginning of April, the proportion of workers who’d ever worked from home had risen to 62%. Clearly, many more jobs could be done from home than were.
This fear of slacking is also reflected in which work-from-home requests are granted. I’ve studied thousands of time logs over the years for my books and time diary projects, and I found that, pre-COVID, Friday was by far the most common work from home day. When people ask to work from home one day a week, Friday is generally the day managers agree to. One survey from Accountemps found that Friday is seen by HR managers as one of the least productive days of the week. I don’t think this isn’t a coincidence. If we assume that people who are working from home aren’t really working, best to minimize the opportunity cost.
I wish the pandemic had removed this fear, but even after COVID sent everyone home, I began hearing from listeners to my podcast (which is about working from home) that a number of teams began doing daily check-ins at 9:00 a.m., making sure everyone was at their desks.
Employees are aware of this suspicion. And so there is a tendency to leave Slack open all day, respond to emails instantly, and skip breaks, lest anyone think silence implies the binge watching of Stranger Things. With no commute, people don’t know when to declare the day done, and so they half work into the night. Long hours with no breaks are pretty closely linked to burnout. One poll finds that burned out employees are 2.6 times as likely to be actively seeking a different job, and 63% are more likely to take a sick day.
But this lack of boundaries isn’t inevitable. When I was reviewing time logs from employees at all-virtual companies as a time management consultant, I noticed that people with children or other caregiving responsibilities were far better at creating a stopping point, which makes sense. Someone has to send a sitter home or pick up the kids from day care.
Wise managers can encourage people without kids to come up with other personal commitments that end the work day. Years ago, when I realized that I was half working and half surfing the web until 10 p.m. every night, I joined three community choirs. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I had to stop work around 6 p.m. to go to rehearsals. I became much more efficient—and happier.
Of course, choirs might be out these days, but here’s an idea. Any organization that institutes a 9:00 a.m. virtual check-in needs to also have a 4:45 p.m. virtual goodbye ceremony. This gives people a stopping point so they live to march again the next day—and maybe spend some time with their dogs too.
Laura Vanderkam is author of The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work From Home, which publishes on July 21, as well as Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done and Juliet’s School of Possibilities. She speaks about time management and productivity for organizations across the U.S. and Canada.


fortune--2020-08-03--Lawn care startup Sunday’s founder on customer retention for a seasonal brand

Parents and students plan to spend more on back-to-school shopping this year , according to PayPal

This is an installment in a special series, Startup Year One, interviewing startup founders about the major lessons they learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
It would seem just about any home product sold directly to consumers would be customizable these days, and that includes lawn care. Spring and summer spell warmer temperatures, and thus peak season for gardening and lawn maintenance businesses.
But Sunday, a Boulder, Colo.-based business founded in 2019, hopes that its “smart lawn plans” based on a given home’s soil, climate, and lawn will keep customers subscribing to its nutrient products year-round.
Fortune recently spoke with founder and CEO Coulter Lewis to learn more about the startup’s first year in business, the lessons learned, the hurdles overcome, and plans for the next year.
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Coulter Lewis, founder of the startup Sunday. Courtesy of Sunday
Fortune: Lawn care isn’t exactly the most exciting of businesses, but it is critical for homeowners and building managers. What inspired the launch of Sunday?
Lewis: My “a-ha!” moment came with the house, so to speak. As a new home buyer with little gardening or lawn care experience, I had never taken care of a lawn. I turned to the internet for guidance but instead of finding instructions, I found products with labels like “WARNING!” “DANGER!” “HAZARD!” I realized that if these chemicals were on my lawn, they were also in my home and around my kids. I found myself at the home improvement store, and looking at the shelves, it all felt like it was from a different era. There was so much room for improvement.
After that, I did some digging and learned that our lawns add up to 40 million aces, making it our third largest crop. The antiquated, brute force approach we’ve been told to use has us laying down about 90 million pounds of pesticides on our lawns annually, five times the rate used on industrial farms. The lawn care system is broken, and as a mechanical and aerospace engineer with a background in agriculture, I was inspired to do something about it. We’re helping transform lawns into a space that’s smarter, safer, and more sustainable for people and the environment we all share.
Most lawn plans include three shipments of nutrients with two to four pouches in each shipment. Each shipment date is driven by a customer’s climate and grass growth. Courtesy of Sunday
While it does require year-round upkeep, lawn care seems ideal for summer months. How do you develop customer retention for a seasonal brand?
Sunday customers pay for an entire year’s subscription up-front, which autorenews at the start of the next season. Through this, we build loyalty throughout the peak and off-peak seasons by delivering on our promise for a better looking lawn. Once you experience how easy and effective lawn care can be, it’s hard to imagine going back to the guesswork and waste of the old way. Throughout the process of growing a greener lawn, we feed customers more information about their ecosystem to build confidence and an affinity for caring for their land.
We were ecstatic to see that a vast majority of our first-year customers renewed their subscription for year two this season; they’ve seen the results and know that we can continue to deliver year-over-year. We’re also gathering real time feedback from our customers throughout the process, and working on developing a wide range of add-on products like patch products for pet stains.
What kind of feedback have you received from your customers, and have you (or will you) apply that feedback to how you sell your products in the future?
Since launch, our feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. Our first year in business was one long hold-your-breath moment to see what customers we’re going to say. It’s more than the fact that people get Sunday in their hands, and it works on their grass. We have thousands of testimonials that are just downright heartwarming, often attached with photos of picnics, kids, pets, and life outdoors. Our customers have reaffirmed that safety and sustainability play an important role in purchasing decisions as well, which we anticipate will increase with the next generation of ultra-informed homeowners.
In addition to the testimonials—which make our day—each Sunday customer actually mails a soil sample from their lawn to our labs. We evaluate everything from organic matter to micronutrients to determine the best treatments for their individual properties, and in turn are on track to become the largest aggregate of location-specific soil data in the country. We have soil samples from backyards in all 50 states, so in addition to the advanced agricultural and climate data we’ve used to develop our core products, we’re using customer samples to inform what’s next.
Sunday’s products are designed to foster building thick, healthy grass and rich, fertile soil. Courtesy of Sunday
Looking beyond the post-pandemic era, which could be anywhere from a year to a few years from now, how do you plan to grow Sunday and what do you want the business to look like five years from now?
There’s an estimated 40 million acres of managed lawn in the U.S. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and it won’t happen overnight. For 2020, we’ll continue to build out our team, our tech, and our product line to make Sunday a complete solution for your property. We look at each product development not just as an opportunity to sell something, but as an opportunity to have a major environmental, even cultural, impact.
Launching Weed Control wasn’t just about getting rid of invasive species for the sake of aesthetics; it was about educating people about the fact that the number one-selling weed killer in the U.S. pollutes our water supply with toxic chemicals and is linked to cancer and birth defects. We want to recultivate people’s relationship with their land, and watch environmental stewardship take foothold in our own backyards.
More must-read lifestyle coverage from Fortune:
—The coronavirus puts the craft beer industry at risk
—Georgia’s staple cheesy bread is more than Instagram bait. It’s an economic indicator
—These dry ciders are made like wine and packaged like beer
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—File your taxes, get a free case of Natty Light
—WATCH: Can San Francisco Be Saved?
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-08-03--In the biggest health care deal of the year, Siemens arm buys cancer treatment specialists for $16.4

In the biggest health care deal of the year, Siemens arm buys cancer treatment specialists for $16.4 billion

The dollar ’ s swift decline is bad news for the markets .
Here ’ s why

Siemens Healthineers agreed to buy Varian Medical Systems for about $16.4 billion in cash in the biggest medical acquisition of the year.
The German medical technology company offered $177.5 a share for the Palo Alto, California-based business, 24% more than its closing price on Friday. The bid will be financed through both debt and equity, Siemens Healthineers said in a statement on Sunday. Bloomberg was first to report the offer on Saturday.
The deal would give Healthineers a sizable market share in the rapidly growing field of cancer treatment where it has little presence currently. Siemens Healthineers said the purchase will a have a positive effect on earnings per share withing the first 12 months of the closing.
The acquisition comes amid early signs of a pickup in deals after the spread of the coronavirus and a worsening economic outlook damped sentiment this year. Deal activity in the medical devices industry is also on the rise, with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Qiagen NV for more than $10 billion and Smiths Group Plc mulling the sale of its medical equipment unit.
The purchase will bring together two partners that have collaborated for more than a decade in areas such as radiotherapy diagnostics for cancer treatments.
Varian recently traded at 38 times estimated earnings, compared with a multiple of 18 for the S&P 500 Health Care index. The company’s shares are little changed this year, compared with a 3.4% advance in the S&P health index, leaving Varian with a market value of about $13 billion.
Healthineers will finance the acquisition through a 15.2 billion-euro ($17.9 billion) bridge loan from Siemens AG, followed by a capital increase this year that the parent company will not participate in.
As a result, Siemen’s stake in Healthineers will decline to about 72% from 85%, Siemens said in a statement. The planned dilution of Siemens’s holding could pave the way for Healthineers to enter into Germany’s benchmark DAX Index.
Healthineers will look at possible inclusion next year, Chief Financial Officer Jochen Schmitz said in an interview. The Index has seen more turmoil than usual recently, with the exit of Lufthansa AG after 32 years, and Commerzbank AG.
“It won’t be a short-term topic, but one we can look at next year,” Schmitz said.
Healthineers, which spun off from Siemens in 2018, has advanced 2.7% this year, boosting its market capitalization to 43.6 billion euros. Revenue in the third quarter was 3.31 billion euros while earnings before interest and taxes reached 461 million euros, the company said Sunday. The company also expects full-year earnings per share of between 1.54 euro and 1.62 euro, compared with 1.57 euro last year.
Chief Executive Officer Bernd Montag said at the end of 2019 that the company’s next acquisition would be “close to home.” “We’re not going to start doing, like, pacemakers, because it does not fit into our portfolio,” Montag said in an interview at the time.


fortune--2020-08-03--The TikTok drama betrays increasing political desperation in the U.S.-China showdown

In the biggest health care deal of the year , Siemens arm buys cancer treatment specialists for $ 16.4 billion

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the Trump administration will soon take action against Chinese software companies, like TikTok and WeChat, that present a risk to national security because they are “feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party.”
“President Trump has said ‘enough,’ and we are going to fix it,” Pompeo told Fox News.
Pompeo’s comments followed an odd sequence of events surrounding TikTok, a popular video app owned by a Chinese company, Bytedance. (If you are not a TikTok user, no worries. You can get the gist of it here, and then go on with your life.)
On Friday, President Trump said he was considering banning the app from the U.S. Fox Business reported that Microsoft was in talks to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok, which would both solve the national security concern and enhance Microsoft’s role in social media. (The software giant bought LinkedIn in 2016.) The Wall Street Journal confirmed that story, and put it in the lead position on Saturday’s print front page.
But then late Friday, flying back to Washington from a campaign rally in Florida, the President told reporters that he didn’t support the Microsoft deal, and instead intended to ban the company from operating here. “I have that authority.” Talks with Microsoft were put on hold.
Then, on Sunday, Microsoft said it is “prepared to continue its discussions” with ByteDance over the TikTok buy. Bytedance CEO Zhang Yiming told employees no final decisions have been made. Chinese media is comparing the potential sale with “forcibly taking the child out of Bytedance’s arms.”
TikTok has taken steps to paint itself as an American brand, hiring a former Disney executive, Kevin Mayer, as CEO. And it is on a hiring spree in the U.S. A sale to Microsoft could be priced at as much as $50 billion, investors say. A ban would cause much of that value to evaporate.
Perhaps the president is trying to get Microsoft a better deal? Perhaps he’s negotiating with China for something else? In any event, his position is at odds with Secretary Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who reportedly support the Microsoft deal.
Stay tuned on this one. The U.S.-China showdown seems to be taking on an ever-deepening hue of political desperation. That’s not a route to good policy.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Chinese manufacturing
Despite the global downturn, the output of Chinese factories continues to grow–in fact, the manufacturing sector last month saw its fastest expansion in nearly eight years. Caixin Insight Group senior economist Wang Zhe: "Flare-ups of the epidemic in some regions did not hurt the improving trend of the manufacturing economy, which continued to recover as more epidemic control measures were lifted." Fortune
Marathon deal
Marathon Petroleum will sell its gas-station chain to Tokyo-based Seven & I Holdings, the owners of 7-Eleven. The all-cash agreement is worth $21 billion. Seven & I president Ryuichi Isaka: "This was the chance of a lifetime." The talks have been underway for some time, though they temporarily fell apart when the pandemic hit. Wall Street Journal
Siemens Healthineers
Siemens Healthineers is shelling out around $16.4 billion to buy Palo Alto-based Varian Medical Systems. The move will give the German health-tech outfit a foothold in the cancer-treatment market and, with Siemens's stake in the spin-off being diluted as part of the financing arrangement behind the deal, Healthineers CFO Jochen Schmitz says it may now list on the DAX. Bloomberg
Those seeds
Those weird packs of seeds sent from China to U.S. citizens who didn't order them? At least some of them have been identified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including rosemary, sage, mint, mustard, cabbage, lavender, hibiscus and rose. The official advice remains not to plant them. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Ryanair's plan
As the pandemic forces most airlines into retreat, Ireland's Ryanair is planning to grab their business. Fortune's Shawn Tully estimates that CEO Michael O'Leary's blueprint will leave Ryanair as much as a third bigger within the next five years. The strategy: "Driving the expense base to levels that create an enduring competitive advantage that enables Ryanair to soar in the recovery while rivals remain stuck on the tarmac." Fortune
Crime and poverty
Former congressman Gary Franks—a Black Republican—writes for Fortune that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right to maintain there is a clear connection between poverty and petty crime. He posits that this could be fixed by enforcing existing anti-discrimination laws so companies who do not employ Black and Hispanic people at all levels of the organization will stop receiving federal funds. Fortune
Chronic fatigue
The Financial Times has a worrying piece on the increasingly apparent longer-term effects of COVID-19. Many people who have recovered from the initial sickness find themselves continually afflicted by extreme fatigue, a foggy brain and other symptoms. COVID-19 survivor Ondine Sherwood: "The government has to wake up and realise we might be dealing with a really big problem here, affecting hundreds of thousands." Financial Times
Iran toll
Iranian authorities appear to have covered up the true toll of the coronavirus there. The BBC's Persian service found the government's own records show Iran's case count to be 451,000 and death toll to be 42,000—its official count is 279,000 cases and 14,400 deaths. Iran's first COVID-19 death was on January 22, almost a month before the first official report of any case. BBC
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-08-03--‘Forcibly taking’ ByteDance’s ‘child:’ How Chinese media sees Microsoft’s possible deal for TikTok

Microsoft confirmed on Sunday it is continuing talks with Chinese tech company ByteDance Ltd to buy its popular short video app TikTok, which President Donald Trump has threatened to ban in the U.S. over national security concerns.
The possible deal for China’s social media crown jewel is not going over well in Beijing, with Chinese state-owned media decrying the move. One editorial likened TikTok’s potential sale to Microsoft to “forcibly taking the child out of ByteDance’s arms.”
TikTok has become a flashpoint in the technological cold war that’s emerging between the U.S. and China. The White House and a growing cohort of U.S. lawmakers are calling for a ban on TikTok in the U.S., claiming that the Chinese government has access to user data and has a say in the platform’s censorship practices. (TikTok denies those accusations.)
Beijing, in response to the U.S. national security review of TikTok, last week said there was no evidence for the U.S.’s security claims against the app and said the threatened ban was based on a “presumption of guilt” that ran against the tenets of the World Trade Organization.
The potential TikTok ban “is in violation of the WTO principles of openness, transparency, and non-discrimination, and it doesn’t serve the interests of the American people and companies,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday.
“China’s software and apps meet people’s need and market demand, provide diversified choices, and help social media markets in all countries grow in a sound manner,” Wang said.
A Sunday editorial in the Global Times, a Chinese state-owned tabloid newspaper known for its nationalistic bent, offered a more polemic take. It argued that Washington’s threatened TikTok ban, as well as other U.S. government actions like blacklisting Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, were intended to curb the growth of Chinese tech that “challenge[s] the high-tech hegemony of the U.S.”
“[T]he U.S. is trying to solidify a high-tech world order in which it is the absolute center,” the editorial said.
The editorial mentioned the potential Microsoft purchase of TikTok, saying Trump’s threatened ban “put even more pressure on ByteDance … to negotiate with Microsoft … This is indeed the hunting and looting of TikTok by the U.S. government in conjunction with U.S. high-tech companies.”
Microsoft said CEO Satya Nadella spoke with Trump about the potential TikTok purchase, and said the company “fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns.”
Wang, the foreign ministry representative, did not mention the potential Microsoft purchase in his Thursday remarks.
A second Global Times article, also published Sunday and written by editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, echoed the first, saying the push to ban TikTok in the U.S. was motivated by concerns that TikTok’s success threatens U.S. dominance in the tech world.
“If Microsoft acquires TikTok, U.S. elites’ concerns about TikTok’s challenge to U.S. technological hegemony can be temporarily alleviated,” Hu wrote. Hu also suggested that Trump wants to ban TikTok because the app is popular among U.S. teenagers who do not support him and who could use the app to jeopardize Trump’s chances of reelection in November.
Hu said the threatened ban represents “a serious inconsistency in traditional American values” and shows “how hypocritical the U.S. is by advocating the absolute free flow of information.” Wang, the foreign ministry spokesperson, similarly called out U.S. “hypocrisy.”
Beijing’s acrid response to TikTok’s possible acquisition by Microsoft underscores how much China treasures the app. TikTok is arguably the country’s first homegrown, internationally popular app, and the fastest-growing social media platform in the world, topping more than two billion global downloads in April.
A Microsoft purchase of TikTok would be a boon for the U.S. technology giant. “[Microsoft] is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury,” Microsoft’s Sunday statement said.
Many U.S.-owned social media sites and websites, including Google, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, are blocked in China by the mainland’s ‘Great Firewall,’ and some, including Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, have complied with Chinese government censorship requirements or created China-only versions of their sites in order to operate in China.
The Global Times editorial said China’s restrictions on Facebook and Twitter are “fundamentally different” from the potential U.S. TikTok ban, saying China’s government would allow the sites to operate in China “in accordance with Chinese laws.”


fortune--2020-08-03--The dollar’s swift decline is bad news for the markets. Here’s why

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Good morning. It’s the first trading day of August, which historically has been a month of low volumes and high volatility. Throw in a pandemic and a presidential campaign, and it should be an eventful month.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mixed in afternoon trade with Japan’s Nikkei up 2% .
are mixed in afternoon trade with Japan’s Nikkei up . Tick tock. The Trump Administration is giving ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale to Microsoft, Reuters reported on Sunday. Microsoft confirmed in a blog post it’s looking to buy TikTok’s operations in the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand .
is giving ByteDance to negotiate a sale to Microsoft, Reuters reported on Sunday. confirmed in a blog post it’s looking to buy TikTok’s operations in the and . HSBC shares were down 4.3% in London on Monday after the Asia-dependent bank raised its loan loss estimates to $13 billion and posted a big hit to profits.
Europe
The European bourses were mostly higher with Germany’s DAX up 1.3% an hour into trading.
were mostly higher with Germany’s up an hour into trading. It’s the biggest health-care deal of the year : Siemens Healthineers has agreed to buy U.S. cancer treatment specialists Varian Medical Systems in a deal that values Varian at $16.4 billion . The move gives Siemens Healthineers a foothold in the cancer market and would likely propel the company into the Dax.
: Siemens Healthineers has agreed to buy U.S. cancer treatment specialists in a deal that values Varian at . The move gives a foothold in the cancer market and would likely propel the company into the Dax. Heineken was down 1.7% in early trade after the Dutch brewer posted a 53% decline in first-half profits. The company is banking on low- and zero-alcohol beer and e-commerce to stimulate growth.
U.S.
Nasdaq futures point to a positive open for the tech-heavy index as it looks to extend its impressive July run. S&P and Dow futures are in the red.
point to a positive open for the tech-heavy index as it looks to extend its impressive July run. S&P and Dow futures are in the red. What’s on the calendar this week ? On Friday, we get the big jobs report . Economists doubt it will capture the full picture of a labor market that’s shown worrying declines in late July. The other big news will be whether the Republicans and Dems can reach an agreement on a new round of stimulus . They’re still far apart.
? On Friday, we get the big . Economists doubt it will capture the full picture of a labor market that’s shown worrying declines in late July. The other big news will be whether the Republicans and Dems can reach an agreement on a . They’re still far apart. Disney reports tomorrow, giving investors an important indicator into the relative health of the leisure and entertainment sectors.
Elsewhere
After an incredible month, gold is up again.
is up again. As is the dollar .
. Crude is off slightly.
***
What’s hot, what’s not
It’s the first trading session of August, which means we’re looking back at the big winners and losers of July. And, yes, gold tops the list.
If you’re long gold and short the dollar, you’re no doubt smiling right now. Seriously, if you made this trade, chapeau! I’m impressed. Usually, gold and the dollar trade in tandem during times of crisis. They are the ultimate safe-haven assets in highly uncertain times. Or were, at least.
The fact the dollar is in such decline speaks poorly to America’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The dollar just had its worst month since 2010. As the chart shows, the dollar index, which measures the greenback’s performance against a half-dozen other currencies, fell by 4.3% in July.
There are some who argue the dollar was overvalued, and that it was bound to come down some. But few foresaw such a swift drop. After hitting an all-time high in March, the greenback has lost 10% of its value.
Now, that may sound like good news for America’s multinationals, but it’s really the global markets’ way of saying the U.S. is bombing in its efforts to manage this crisis. The impasse in Washington over a coherent stimulus plan is also hurting the currency. All that is giving investors the jitters.
Where are investors turning, instead? To tech and Chinese equities, namely. The Shanghai Composite has had some crazy swings in recent weeks, but it was up nearly 10% last month, fueled by an impressive final week of the month. If history is any judge, that exchange will continue to be volatile.
The safest of safe havens continues to be Big Tech. The Fab 5—Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet—thrived under lockdown, hitting a series of all-time highs.
It’s probably a good thing July was such a strong month for the major exchanges. Looking forward, the S&P 500 in August and September has, since 1985, generated its weakest performances of the year. That’s according to Goldman Sachs.
History could repeat itself as the presidential election campaign goes into overdrive in the coming days. Politics and the coronavirus crisis will likely be big drags on the markets going forward, market experts say.
Good luck with your portfolios in the weeks ahead.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's reads
Millennials destroyed...workplace productivity? Millennials may have grown up online, but they are finding it exceedingly difficult to maintain their productivity levels while working from home. In fact, they're the most likely generation to report their efficiency has crashed under lockdown. Where does your generation clock in? Fortune's Lance Lambert has the full breakdown.
Those thrifty consumers. It was widely expected that stimulus checks would send consumers to the stores to spend, spend, spend. But new data shows the opposite. Credit card debt in the U.S. and other advanced economies has fallen noticeably in recent months. “We’re not seeing consumers increase credit-card balances; in fact, they’re continuing to pay down balances,” Peter Maynard, senior vice president at Equifax, told the Wall Street Journal.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
99%
"Expansion" and "airlines" are two words you seldom hear in the same sentence these days. But that's the plan for Europe's biggest budget airline, Ryanair, even as its revenues crashed 99% in the April-June quarter. Fortune's Shawn Tully digs into Ryanair's numbers to see if its ambitious growth-in-a-crisis strategy can get liftoff.


fortune--2020-08-03--USDA identifies 14 of those mysterious seeds from China

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has identified 14 varieties of mysterious seeds purportedly sent from China to U.S. citizens who didn’t order them. The known varieties include rosemary, sage, mint and hibiscus. The common herbs hardly seem a threat, but APHIS maintains its warning—reiterated by all 50 states—that recipients of unsolicited seed shipments should not plant them.
“Our main concern is the potential for these seeds to introduce damaging pests or diseases that could harm U.S. agriculture,” APHIS said in a thorough statement on the seed situation, posted on the USDA’s website. Osama El-Lissy, an official with APHIS, said the 14 seeds represent “just a subset of the samples we have collected so far.”
The strange seeds began appearing in Americans’ mailboxes at least two months ago, often arriving in packages marked as containing jewelry. One man in Arkansas planted the seeds he received and nurtured them to growth. He then reported the incident to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture once authorities issued the public warnings. Local authorities have since dug up the offending plant.
Reports say the majority of these mysterious seed packets have been shipped from China, although China foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said last week that the China Post shipping labels found on the packets had been forged. Wang said China Post “prohibits seeds from conveyance by post” and had requested the U.S. Postal Service “send those fake packages to China for investigation.”
It’s not only the U.S. on the receiving end of this bizarre scheme, and it isn’t always China that’s marked as the country of origin. A woman in the U.K. and another in Canada received seeds purporting to be from Singapore. Meanwhile, a woman in New Zealand was sent seeds reportedly from Zambia. New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries intercepted the seeds before they arrived, replacing them with a note warning the woman not to import seeds illegally.
Most countries regulate the import of seeds and other organic material, to protect against invasive species. In the U.S., gardeners have previously been blamed for unleashing Japanese knotweed and butterfly bush on American soil, while the U.K.’s Animal and Plant Health Agency intercepts around 1,000 plant-related shipments a year.
The latest batch of mysterious seed parcels has received more media attention than normal, perhaps due to the deterioration of China-U.S. relations. Some pundits have wondered aloud whether the seed shipments could be an act of state-sponsored ecoterrorism. The USDA, however, says there’s no evidence to suggest the fraudulent packages are anything other than a “brushing scam.”
Brushing is when a seller on an e-commerce site, such as Amazon, boosts their ranking by falsifying reviews and sales. Mailing cheap products to unsuspecting customers is one way to do that. The practice is common in China.
Jack Ma, founder of China’s largest e-commerce site Alibaba, has said that when his eBay-alternative started, he and the other employees did a similar thing: listing their own items and selling them to each other, in order to make the website seem more active.


fortune--2020-08-03--Chinese factories’ COVID comeback defies the global downturn

In July, Chinese factories reported their fastest expansion in nearly eight years.
On Monday, the Chinese media outlet Caixin, in partnership with the global consulting firm IHS Markit, published a survey of Chinese manufacturers showing that output at Chinese factories is growing even as the global economy endures a downturn amid the pandemic.
Caixin and IHS Markit track manufacturing performance through the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), in which a number above 50 indicates growth in comparison to the previous month; a number below 50 means contraction. In July, China posted a 52.8 PMI, its highest since January 2013.
The July PMI shows that China’s “manufacturing sector continued to expand amid the ongoing economic recovery,” Wang Zhe, senior economist at Caixin Insight Group, said in the report. He explained that “flare-ups of the epidemic in some regions did not hurt the improving trend of the manufacturing economy, which continued to recover as more epidemic control measures were lifted.”
Caixin and IHS Markit’s private survey painted a more bullish portrait of China’s manufacturing sector than the Chinese government, which reported a July PMI of 51.1 in official numbers on Friday.
Caixin and IHS Markit said companies they surveyed attributed July’s growth to rising consumer demand in China. Manufacturers are still grappling with sluggish global demand for goods as the pandemic rages beyond China’s borders. The report found that Chinese manufacturers’ new export orders fell for the seventh consecutive month, which led to a small contraction in overall employment in the sector.
“We still need to pay attention to the weakness in both employment and overseas demand,” Wang said in the report.
The manufacturing numbers align with projections for China’s overall economic prospects that the World Bank published last week.
The World Bank predicted that China’s 2020 GDP growth would clock in at 1.6%, which would mark the largest slowdown in China’s economy since 1976. The bank said that while China’s manufacturing sector and domestic economy is rebounding, external demand remains “fragile” and will constrain the economy this year.
However, the World Bank expects China’s economy to grow by 7.9% in 2021 as external demand rises. The rate would represent the fastest growth for China’s economy in nine years.


fortune--2020-08-03--7-Eleven’s Japanese parent pushes U.S. expansion with $21 billion deal for Speedway

Seven & i Holdings Co., the world’s largest convenience store franchiser, agreed to buy Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Speedway gas stations for $21 billion, betting that an expanded U.S. footprint will deliver growth amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.
The transaction, to be paid in cash and partly financed using debt, will add about 3,900 stores to 9,800 locations operated by the retailer’s U.S.-based 7-Eleven unit, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement Monday. Seven & i shares fell as much as 8.4% by midday, the biggest intraday decline since March.
The deal is the second-largest purchase of a U.S. target this year and the biggest yet for Seven & i, a retail giant with 69,000 stores worldwide including 7-Eleven outlets and Ito-Yokado supermarkets in Japan. Seven & i spent $3.3 billion three years ago to buy Sunoco LP gas stations and convenience stores in a push to expand its U.S. footprint.
“This is a historic first step as we seek to become a global retailer,” Chief Executive Officer Ryuichi Isaka said on a conference call Monday.
Marathon follows a long line of energy companies that are shedding retail networks to focus on making fuel. The deal, the biggest in the oil sector since the coronavirus outbreak, comes as retailers look to shift their focus amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has further upended a sector already being impacted by the onset of e-commerce. Marathon said it will use $16.5 billion in after-tax proceeds to reduce debt and bolster dividend payments.
The Japanese retailer was seeking a deal earlier this year to buy Speedway, the second-largest chain of its kind in the U.S., but hit pause after offering $22 billion, Bloomberg News has reported.
Isaka has overseen a broad restructuring of the Japanese firm since taking the helm in 2016, with a focus on expanding in the U.S. Seven & i has been pressured by a saturated convenience store market in Japan and a tight labor market that makes its 24-7 operating model challenging.
“Japan’s convenience store market is at its limit as the population ages,” said Hiroaki Watanabe, a logistics analyst and author of a book on Japan’s convenience store industry. “There will be a short-term impact from the coronavirus in the U.S., but long-term the population there will keep growing.”
North America accounted for about 40% of the company’s sales in the latest fiscal year, up from about a third five years ago. Speedway’s store count has tripled since 2011 across 36 states.
Investor Pressure
Late last year, Marathon faced months of pressure from investors including Elliott Management Corp. and D.E. Shaw & Co. for sweeping changes to improve its performance. Elliott had been pushing for Marathon to break itself up into three separate businesses: refining, retail and pipelines.
The company wrapped up a strategic review of MPLX LP, its publicly traded oil pipeline affiliate, ultimately deciding to retain its stake in the midstream business. Investor pressure also led to Gary Heminger stepping down as CEO in March after 45 years at the company.
American fuel makers like Marathon have been struggling to recover amid fears that a second viral wave will force more drivers off the road, particularly in some of the nation’s most populous states.
Seven & i will raise about $1 billion by selling off overlapping U.S. stores after the transaction, Isaka said on the call.
Marathon took a $12.4 billion charge in the first three months of this year while also suspending share buybacks and slashing spending by 30%.
In terms of scale, the proposed deal is less than the $31.4 billion that Aon Plc is paying for Willis Towers Watson Plc, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.


fortune--2020-08-03--U.S.’s oldest department store is latest retail bankruptcy of the COVID era

Lord & Taylor, known for its upscale fashions and extravagant holiday window displays, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors after a turnaround effort faltered amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The oldest U.S. department store filed for Chapter 11 protection in Richmond, Virginia, on Sunday and will submit a reorganization plan with the court. The company, founded in Manhattan by two English immigrants in 1826, said it had about $137.9 million of debt obligations.
Lord & Taylor’s owner, fashion start-up Le Tote Inc., filed for Chapter 11 along with the retail chain. Le Tote bought the rights to the company’s stores, brand and e-commerce site from Fifth Avenue owner Hudson’s Bay Co. for $71 million last year.
Subscribe to The Broadsheet , a daily brief for and about the world’s most powerful women, delivered free to your inbox.
The company, with 38 stores and 651 employees as of the filing, joins a burgeoning list of department-store casualties tied to the virus, which turned malls into ghost towns. Former fashion stalwarts like J. Crew Group Inc. and Neiman Marcus Inc. already filed for bankruptcy protection this year.
Lord & Taylor closed all of its stores temporarily in March as governors ordered residents to shelter in place to combat the spreading virus.
San Francisco-based Le Tote offers fashion-apparel rentals. Executives at the company have planned to cut the number of Lord & Taylor stores and target younger women with luxury try-on studios, beauty subscriptions and rental drop-off points.
Under the deal with Hudson’s Bay, the seller agreed to cover Lord & Taylor’s rent for three years, saving Le Tote $58 million annually. Le Tote said in a court filing Sunday that its companies reported revenue of about $253.5 million in 2019.


fortune--2020-08-04--The pandemic workday is 48 minutes longer and has more meetings

Warning : This malware is tied to the Chinese government , U.S. says

We log longer hours. We attend more meetings with more people. And, we send more emails.
From New York City to Tel Aviv, the telecommuting revolution has meant a lot more work, according to a study of 3.1 million people at more than 21,000 companies across 16 cities in North America, Europe and the Middle East.
The researchers compared employee behavior over two 8 week periods before and after Covid-19 lockdowns. Looking at email and meeting meta-data, the group calculated the workday lasted 48.5 minutes longer, the number of meetings increased about 13% and people sent an average of 1.4 more emails per day to their colleagues.
In a few cities, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, the average workday length returned to its pre-pandemic levels. But longer days persisted in New York City, San Jose and most of Europe well into May.
“People have adjusted their work patterns,” said Jeff Polzer, a professor in the organizational behavior department at Harvard Business School, one of the study’s five co-authors.
During the two month time frame, there was one part of working that did improve: Those additional meetings were shorter, according to the analysis by researchers at Harvard Business School and New York University. The study was published by the National Bureau of Economic Relations this July.
Companies are studying the impact of the forced work-from-home experiment on productivity, morale, culture, costs and other factors to determine how they might modify their practices going forward. Other analyses looking at VPN data found people were putting in three additional hours in the U.S. and logging in at odd hours. People who spoke to Bloomberg News attributed their harried schedules to child care demands, blurring boundaries between work and home, and the stresses of an economic recession.
The group from Harvard and NYU said their research represents one of the largest studies so far and included data from 16 metropolitan areas.
Polzer from Harvard says more research is needed to see if habits have changed permanently, but he doesn’t expect behavior to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon. “It’s not like we’re going to back to normal times,” he said.


fortune--2020-08-03--Warning: This malware is tied to the Chinese government, U.S. says

Congress wants to curb Big Tech .
It could end up crushing startups instead

The U.S. government issued an alert Monday that a type of malware seen frequently by security researchers in the last decade is tied to the Chinese government, the latest in a series of American warnings about China’s cyber capabilities this summer.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Defense “identified a malware variant used by Chinese government cyber-actors, which is known as Taidoor,” according to the alert. The purpose of the alert, which contained no information about the prevalence of the malware or who has been targeted, is to “enable network defense and reduce exposure to Chinese government malicious cyber-activity.”
While this type of malware has been used since 2008, the Chinese government continues to leverage it in ongoing espionage to gain intelligence, according to a U.S. Cyber Command official, who requested anonymity as is the agency’s policy.
The cybersecurity firms FireEye Inc. and CrowdStrike have seen Taidoor malware used by multiple China-based groups targeting the U.S. and Asia but have observed a recent decline in its use.
In the past, the malware has hit sectors including law, nuclear power, airlines, engineering, defense industrial base, technology, government and aerospace, according to the cybersecurity firms. It’s commonly sent in spearphishing attacks and used to gain access to systems, said Ben Read, a senior manager of analysis at FireEye.
The government’s decision to publicly connect Taidoor to China comes as President Donald Trump plans to order China’s ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of the music-video app TikTok amid a U.S. investigation of potential national security risks. In May, the U.S. warned organizations researching coronavirus of “likely targeting and attempted network compromise” by China.


fortune--2020-08-03--The FDA is warning consumers to avoid these 114 hand sanitizers

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
At the onset of COVID, hand sanitizer was nearly impossible to find. Now it’s everywhere—but not all brands are created equal.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday released a list of hand sanitizer products consumers should avoid. Some are ineffective, others could be deadly.
Some of these hand sanitizers have low levels of isopropyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol, that make them ineffective in preventing the spread of disease—a critical feature during a pandemic. But most of the products that the FDA is warning consumers about are products contaminated with methanol, which can be harmful, or evenly deadly, when absorbed or consumed.
The FDA outlined 114 hand sanitizers to avoid, including the Hello Kitty brand, three Modesa brand hand sanitizers, and 24 different Blumen hand sanitizers. The Blumen brands and Hello Kitty brand are contaminated by methanol, and made by 4E Global SAPI de CV in Mexico, according to the FDA. Blumen has already issued a voluntary recall.
“FDA is warning consumers and health care providers that the agency has seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products that are labeled to contain ethanol (also known as ethyl alcohol) but that have tested positive for methanol contamination,” according to Monday’s FDA warning. “Methanol, or wood alcohol, is a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested and can be life-threatening when ingested.”
You can find the full list of the 114 hand sanitizers that the FDA urges consumers to avoid here.
The FDA recommends Americans wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. And if soap isn’t available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Americans use hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent ethanol, otherwise known as ethyl alcohol.


fortune--2020-08-03--Did dinosaurs get cancer? A new study says yes

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
A group of Canadian researchers say they have discovered the first confirmed case of a dinosaur with malignant cancer—by combining the skills used to analyze prehistoric fossils with modern methods used to diagnose humans.
In a study published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology, researchers led by Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said the case suggested that malignant tumors, including bone cancers, “are rooted quite deeply in the evolutionary history of organisms.”
The researchers examined a lower leg bone from centrosaurus apertus, a horned dinosaur that lived 76 to 77 million years ago. The bone itself was originally discovered in 1989 in the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the most dinosaur fossil-rich regions in the world.
The bone, which was visibly malformed, caught the eye of researchers on a trip to Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum in 2017. A team of experts across both dinosaur and human pathology was assembled, including orthopedic surgeons.
The researchers examined and cast the bone, performed high-resolution CT scans, and sliced the bone into extremely thin sections, examining it at a cellular level to track the progression of the cancer into the bone, before diagnosing the dinosaur with osteosarcoma. The bone was then compared to a regular fibula bone from the same species of dinosaur, and a human bone with a confirmed case of the same cancer.
Horned dinosaur Centrosaurus apertus shin bone (fibula) with malignant bone cancer (osteosarcoma). Centrosaurus apertus, was a herbivorous ceratopsian (horned) dinosaur that lived approximately 76 million years. This fossil from the Royal Tyrrell Museum collections was originally found in the Dinosaur Park Formation, in Alberta, Canada. Centrosaurus diagram by Danielle Dufault. Courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum/McMaster University.
Osteosarcoma is the most common form of bone cancer in humans, and is usually found in teenagers and young adults, including the Canadian runner Terry Fox.
In the paper, researchers noted that it has previously been difficult to establish evidence of cancer in dinosaur fossils, not only because soft tissue is lost as the bones fossilize, but because the bones are often damaged in the process. The rarity and uniqueness of dinosaur bones has also made researchers reluctant to destroy them in order to conduct tests, they added.
“Diagnosis of aggressive cancer like this in dinosaurs has been elusive and requires medical expertise and multiple levels of analysis to properly identify,” said Dr. Mark Crowther, a professor of pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University, who is also an avowed fan of dinosaurs and a volunteer at the ROM.
“Here, we show the unmistakable signature of advanced bone cancer in a 76 million-year-old horned dinosaur—the first of its kind. It’s very exciting.”
The dinosaur’s cancer was both aggressive and advanced, said Dr. David Evans, a paleontologist at the ROM, and “would have had crippling effects on the individual and made it very vulnerable to the formidable tyrannosaur predators of the time.”
He speculated that the large, plant-eating centrosaurus apertus may have been protected by its place in a large, protective herd, allowing it to survive much longer than it normally would have with such a disease.
In the end, researchers concluded that it was unlikely the cancer—or a tyrannosaurus—actually killed the dinosaur.
Instead, its discovery in a massive bone bed alongside other fossils suggested the dino was killed alongside a large herd by another persistent danger: a flood.


fortune--2020-08-03--Congress wants to curb Big Tech. It could end up crushing startups instead

Thursday’s Congressional antitrust hearing marked an important milestone in the government’s ongoing exploration into whether and, specifically, how to regulate Big Tech. But judging from the lines of questioning, lawmakers may be focusing on some of the wrong issues.
As the pandemic-induced downturn rages on, and unemployment rates continue to soar, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon are doing better than ever. Apple is now worth more than $1.9 trillion, and Amazon, whose stock price has grown 63% 2020 alone, enjoys an equally staggering $1.6 trillion market cap. Collectively, these four companies are worth $5 trillion, account for nearly a fifth of the S&P 500, and, more importantly, wield unprecedented power over nearly every segment of society.
Some of the questions on Thursday focused, appropriately so, on the topics of mergers and acquisitions aimed at either killing competitors or consolidating their market power to the point of monopolistic control. Stratechery’s Ben Thompson has called Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram “the greatest regulatory failure of the past decade.” M&A is also a natural area for regulator focus since regulatory bodies like the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have experience conducting oversight in this manner.
Even so, focusing tech regulation on M&A would be a mistake—especially now as we navigate what may become the weakest job market since the Great Depression. Now more than ever the risks of over-correcting through aggressive anti-M&A policymaking significantly outweigh the risks of missing the rare instance of an Instagram.
Tech M&A encompasses a broad range of transactions ranging from modest acquihires (where companies that were likely going to fail are bought for their employees, usually engineers) to billion-dollar megahits. While the big hits get most of the media attention, it’s the small buys that account for the vast majority of transactions. There are also many mid-size acquisitions which can create solid and even occasionally outstanding outcomes for startup founders and employees. In 2018 there were 779 M&A transactions of venture-backed companies with a median deal value of $105 million.
To be sure, IPOs are almost universally the goal for venture-backed founders and investors. IPOs consistently generate the best payouts for everyone involved (employees, founders and investors) and create the most jobs. But most companies will never be able to reach the scale required to thrive in the public markets, a lesson starkly demonstrated by several tech public offerings that took place last year. Moreover, the scale required for a company to go public has been increasing due to our current regulatory environment. That’s why over the past few years we’ve seen on average half the IPOs per year that we saw in either decade before 2000. As a result, there are roughly half the total number of public companies today that there were twenty years ago.
The more challenging it is for companies to go public, the more important M&A becomes as a motivation for founders to take risks and for venture investors to fund them. If restrictions on M&A reduce financial returns, the tech innovation ecosystem will attract fewer entrepreneurs and less capital. Many acquisitions in the tech sector are executed by the same tech companies that regulators seek to limit, and even when those companies do not ultimately complete these acquisitions, they’re often part of the bidding process that leads to positive outcomes for entrepreneurs and venture investors. Given high failure rates among startups, entrepreneurs and their teams need the lure of potential large outcomes to motivate them to take on such extraordinary risk. In other words, by limiting M&A to promote competition against Big Tech, we could end up with less.
Instead, I recommend the following steps to level the competitive playing field without depriving entrepreneurs of the option to exit via acquisitions:
Mandate data portability
The power of the big technology companies is derived at least in part from the user data they have amassed, allowing them to deliver ever more targeted services and results, and ultimately ensuring consumer “lock in.” Giving users control over their own social, financial and health data and the freedom to move it to other services will help to level the playing field and encourage entrepreneurs to innovate and compete. In the words of Nick Grossman of Union Square Ventures, “Break up the data, not the companies.”
Encourage platform interoperability
Today large technology companies control access to platforms and audiences on which startups are dependent for survival. For example, iPhone users can only download apps through Apple’s App Store, and app developers who sell through the App Store, with few exceptions, are required to pay Apple a hefty toll. Moreover, in their roles controlling these platforms and monitoring the data that flows through them, the big companies are able to identify which products have traction and copy them. The powerful gatekeeper role of the large tech platforms should be moderated by encouraging interoperability and instituting, where appropriate, “Chinese Walls” to prevent them from using their data and platform dominance to unfairly guarantee the success of separate products and services that compete with customers or partners.
Make it easier for companies to go public
Congress can relax some of the financial, accounting and legal controls put in place through the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts that are creating so many hurdles for companies to go public. More public companies would generate more competition for these dominant firms.
These are complex issues without any easy answers. There’s always the risk that regulation can strengthen the incumbents by creating so many costly hurdles that it becomes impossible for startups to compete. Fortunately, regulators have demonstrated that they’re interested in receiving input from VCs and startup leaders, both directly and through dialogue with organizations like the National Venture Capital Association.
Let’s not take America’s incredible innovation ecosystem for granted: The share of worldwide VC dollars deployed in the U.S. has declined from more than 95% in the mid-1990’s to just over half today. If we’re not careful about how we address our economic recovery, we could inadvertently provide a competitive advantage to international companies unhindered by acquisition restrictions. The American dream has always epitomized what is best about our country: the idea that through hard work and innovation anyone here can build a business and improve their lives. For the past few decades, we’ve seen the American dream realized time and again through the amazing efforts of our entrepreneurs. Right now, we need these remarkable entrepreneurs more than ever to help us weather the pandemic storm, reignite our economy and generate new jobs.
Patricia Nakache is a general partner at Trinity Ventures, a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a board member of the National Venture Capital Association.


fortune--2020-08-03--When your second stimulus check could arrive—once Congress actually passes a new relief bill

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
We’re at an impasse.
Both Senate Republicans and House Democrats support sending another round of $1,200 stimulus checks to Americans, however, they can’t come to an agreement for the broader stimulus bill in which the checks would be included. Democrats want more money for state governments and unemployment benefits, while Republicans want the extra $600 weekly federal unemployment benefits reduced and COVID-19 lawsuit immunity for businesses.
But the economic situation the country faces suggest that both parties will come to an agreement for more stimulus. The number of American on state unemployment rolls shot up from 1.8 million on March 14 to 24.9 million by May 9. As states eased their shutdown orders, that number fell to 16.2 million as of July 11. However, as coronavirus cases soar through much of the country, state unemployment rolls shot back up to 17 million the week of July 18.
Simply put: The economy is teetering on the brink of a double-dip recession. Indeed, American CEOs now foresee a W-shaped recovery—a double-dip recession—as more likely than a V-shaped recovery.
Here’s what we to know about where things stand, and when you might actually see a check.
What do the Democrats want?
The Democrats passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act in May, which would have provided $1,200 to most Americans. Similar to the CARES Act it would have provided checks to Americans earning up to $75,000 per year and $2,400 for couples earning up to $150,000 annually.
The bill bumped the $500 per dependent in the CARES Act up to $1,200. And it would’ve also sent stimulus money for adult dependents.
House Democrats still support their stimulus check proposal in the HEROES Act.
What is the Republican stimulus plan?
What Senate Republicans are proposing in the HEALS Act is nearly identical to the first stimulus bill. It would send a stimulus check worth as much as $1,200 for individuals or $2,400 for married couples, plus $500 for each qualifying child. That amount would decrease for adjusted gross income above $75,000 per individual or $150,000 per qualified couple. And the checks phase out for individuals earning above $99,000, head of household filers with one child above $146,500, and joint filers with no children at $198,000.
Young adults who are claimed as dependents on their parents taxes did not receive a stimulus check the first time around. However, McConnell said his plan would provide “more support” for adult dependents. His party is proposing $500 per dependent regardless of age (it was capped age 17 in the first round of stimulus checks).
Democrats and Republicans are very close in terms of what they’re proposing for stimulus checks. It’s the other items where the debate is more heated.
Democrats would like more than $1 trillion for state and local governments who are facing budget shortfalls from the pandemic. Republicans are less open to state and local government money, and instead want to provide immunity to businesses from COVID-19 related lawsuits—something Democrats are uneasy with.
But the most heated Congressional debates have dealt with the extending the $600 unemployment checks, which lapsed following the week of July 26. Republican leaders are frustrated that the benefit pays around 7 in 10 jobless Americans more in unemployment benefits than they were earning while working. GOP members are asserting that such generous benefits could deter the jobless from seeking work.
That’s why Republican leaders propose reducing the unemployment benefit bonus—which is paid on top of state benefits—from $600 to $200 per week for the next two months. After that period, the benefit would transition into covering 70% of the unemployed persons’ previous income through the end of the year.
Democratic leaders reject that idea, and want the extra $600 unemployment benefit extended into January 2021.
“Millions of people could have fallen into poverty without this $600,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during an interview over the weekend. “A building is on fire and they are deciding how much water they want to have in the bucket.”
When would I get my second stimulus check if Congress passes the stimulus bill?
After the passage of the CARES Act on March 27, Americans started to receive their stimulus checks as early as the week of April 13. But for millions of Americans, including those on Social Security, those checks were delayed until they provided additional information.
This go around, White House officials have suggested the distribution of the checks could be sped up more, given the system is already in place. However, until the bill passes and the U.S. Department of the Treasury issues guidance, nothing is certain. But it’s safe to assume that the checks for many Americans could come as early as two weeks after President Donald Trump signs the next stimulus bill.
Is it possible no second stimulus checks get sent out?
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said last week the two parties are “nowhere close to a deal.” He even suggested they might not pass anything.
“No deal certainly becomes a greater possibility the longer these negotiations take,” Meadows said.
Another stimulus bill is far from guaranteed. But at the same time, with the jobless rate still above double digits, there is certainly pressure for the two parties to come to an agreement sooner than later.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune :


fortune--2020-08-03--Trump: TikTok must sell U.S. arm by Sept. 15 or close

President Donald Trump said TikTok will have to close in the U.S. by Sept. 15 — unless there’s a deal to sell the social network’s domestic operations to Microsoft or another U.S. company.
Trump also said the federal government will have to be paid a “substantial amount of money” as part of any deal.
“I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or someone else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buys it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “It’ll close down on Sept. 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the Treasury of the United States gets a lot of money.”
Trump set off a furious scramble over the fate of the Chinese-owned app on Friday, when he said he would ban the company’s operations through an executive action on Saturday. But the weekend passed without any official move from the White House, after the president spoke with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella about his company’s efforts to purchase the viral video application.
Microsoft said in a blog post that it was aiming to complete a deal for TikTok’s operations in the U.S., as well as in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, no later than Sept. 15. The White House had insisted upon that deadline, according to people familiar with the matter. It could prove an uphill climb, with key details for the deal — including price — still not worked out, people familiar with the discussions said.
Trump told reporters on Monday: “Whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it — because I guess it’s China, essentially, more than anything else — I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the treasury of the United States.”
Trump questioned who would get rights to the company’s name if TikTok is owned by two different companies. “My personal opinion was they would be better off buying the whole thing rather than buying 30% of it,” Trump said. “I think buying 30% is complicated.”
The White House has said it’s concerned that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., could be compelled to hand over American users’ data to Beijing or use the app to influence the 165 million Americans, and more than 2 billion users globally, who have downloaded it. And Trump has looked to ratchet up pressure on China ahead of November’s election, frustrated by slow implementation of the trade pact inked earlier this year and the spread of the coronavirus for which he blames China.
Trump said Monday that TikTok “can’t be controlled for security reasons by China. Too big, too invasive, and it can’t be.”
Teenagers opposed to Trump have also used the app to disrupt the president’s campaign activities, including signing up for tickets to his first rally since the beginning of the pandemic, in Tulsa. Attendance at the late June event was far below expectations, and Trump hasn’t held another rally since.
In its blog post, Microsoft pledged to add more security, privacy and digital safety protections to the TikTok app and ensure that all private data of Americans be transferred back to the U.S. and deleted from servers outside the country. The company also said it may invite other American investors to take minority stakes in the company.
“Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns,” the company said. “It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury.”
Still, U.S. lawmakers and administration officials have favored shutting down the application altogether to send a message to China after Beijing restricted American companies like Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. White House adviser Peter Navarro on Monday said in a pair of interviews with CNN and Fox News that he wasn’t sure Microsoft was the right company to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations, saying it had helped China construct its internet firewall.
“Should we trust any company that operates in China?” Navarro told Fox News.


fortune--2020-08-03--‘The Rock’ buys part of bankrupt XFL pro football league

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will buy the assets of the bankrupt professional football league XFL as part of a group bid with his business partner Dany Garcia and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners.
The group is paying $15 million for substantially all of the assets of Alpha Entertainment LLC, the parent company of the XFL, according to a statement Monday.
Johnson and Garcia were looking at buying the XFL at the same time as Cardinale, with the two groups then deciding to join together to complete the purchase, Garcia said in an interview Monday morning. Garcia and Johnson were previously married.
“We were simultaneously all examining the property deeply,” said Garcia, who was a big fan of the XFL in its 2020 season and called Johnson when she saw the opportunity to buy it. “We were two groups who could see the magic of this league.”
Cardinale is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner and his private investment firm RedBird manages $4 billion of capital. Cardinale partnered with the Steinbrenner family in 2002 to launch the YES Network, the no. 1 regional sports network in the U.S., according to the Redbird website.
“With pride and gratitude for all that I’ve built with my own two hands, I plan to apply these callouses to the XFL, and look forward to creating something special for the players, fans, and everyone involved for the love of football,” Johnson said in the statement. The sale is subject to bankruptcy court approval at a hearing Friday and may be completed around August 21.
Alpha Entertainment filed for bankruptcy in April after the Covid-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of the league’s first season. The upstart football league was founded in 2017 by promoter Vince McMahon, best known for making professional wrestling into a global business, and played its first game in 2020, according to a court filing. McMahon withdrew his bid to buy the XFL out of bankruptcy in May after opposition from creditors.
Johnson was on the University of Miami football team that won a national championship in 1991 and he rose to fame as a professional wrestler in McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation. He was best known for his trademark line, “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” which he delivered with an arched eyebrow. Johnson then moved into acting.
2020 Season
The XFL’s 2020 season kicked off in February, shortly after the Super Bowl and the end of the National Football League’s season. “We consider ourselves a complement to all other forms and brands of football,” XFL president and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Pollack said in an interview Monday. The XFL had eight teams and laid off about 500 players when it filed for bankruptcy.
Garcia will be one of the few female owners of a professional sports league. “You’re going to find that the XFL is extremely vocal about normalizing equality and equalizing justice and patriotism is about expressing yourself,” she said Monday.
Players who kneel during the national anthem would not be disciplined, she said, adding, “We’re going to continue to be at the forefront of representing what a sports league should look like.”


fortune--2020-08-03--COVID-19 is killing journalists in prisons, compounding the threat of attacks on the press

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Journalists have long faced threats of intimidation, imprisonment, or even death for their truth-seeking work. Now, the risk of COVID-19 poses an added element of danger.
Since the onset of the pandemic, journalists who have been wrongly imprisoned for their reporting have contracted the coronavirus in confinement. In Honduras last month, a journalist named David Romero Ellner died from complications of COVID-19 while serving on defamation charges. His was a case of unfortunate timing: The country recently passed legislation that will prevent future sentences for the same crime, yet Ellner remained in prison. Another journalist, Azimjon Askarov, died in prison in Kyrgyzstan, also in July. His wife, Khadicha Askarova, told reporters she suspects he died of COVID-19, though he did not have the opportunity to take a diagnostic test prior to his death.
It’s tragic stories like these that have led a number of organizations, including Fortune partner One Free Press Coalition (OFPC), to call for the release of detained journalists, now more urgently than ever.
Since last spring, Fortune has copublished a monthly ranked list of the 10 most urgent press freedom cases, assembled by the OFPC in partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). Askarov remains on the list for the eleventh time since the OFPC began compiling it, even in death, as do other journalists who did not deserve their fate, but still deserve justice. (You can read last month’s list here.)
Eight years without updates regarding American reporter who disappeared in Syria.
This month marks eight years since freelance American photojournalist Austin Tice went missing while reporting on the civil war in Syria. The then-31-year-old had contributed to The Washington Post, McClatchy publications and Al-Jazeera English. Tice’s family believes he is still alive, and the U.S. State Department is also operating under the assumption that Tice is still alive. The F.B.I. has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his return.
Editor on trial exemplifies Filipino government’s silencing of independent media.
U.S.-Filipino dual citizen Maria Ressa returned to court July 30 for a second cyber libel case, after a June 15 criminal conviction stemming from an article published in 2012. Her privately owned news website, Rappler, had reported about a local businessman’s alleged ties to a former judge. Ressa and her former colleague Reynaldo Santos Jr. were each ordered to pay $7,950 and serve at most six years in jail; all of that is pending appeal. In July more than 70 organizations launched a campaign and petition supporting independent media under attack in the Philippines.
Medical neglect caused death of journalist serving life sentence.
Award-winning journalist Azimjon Askarov died in prison at age 69 in July. Family members had long pled for his release citing deteriorating health, including fever, and inability to walk in his final weeks, though authorities refused to administer a COVID-19 test. The human rights reporter had served 10 years of a life sentence, which was repeatedly appealed and upheld, for trumped-up charges that included incitement to ethnic hatred and complicity in the murder of a police officer. He was the country’s only imprisoned journalist and the first killed since 2007.
Journalist planning to appeal death sentence.
Amad News manager and activist Roohallah Zam was dealt a death sentence on June 30. He had been working for the popular anti-government news channel on the messaging app Telegram when intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested him last October. They brought 17 charges including espionage, working against the Islamic Republic with governments of Israel, the U.S. and France and spreading corruption which is punishable by execution. His lawyer says they plan to appeal.
5. Agnès Ndirubusa and the team at Iwacu (Burundi)
Court denies appeal for four journalists serving 2.5 years.
In June, Burundi courts rejected an appeal in the case of Agnès Ndirubusa, head of Iwacu’s political desk, and colleagues Christine Kamikazi, Egide Harerimana and Térence Mpozenzi. The four were arrested in October while covering clashes in the Bubanza Province for one of the country’s last independent outlets. The court convicted them in January of attempting to undermine state security, fined them each $530 and sentenced them to 2.5 years in prison.
Journalist describes harassment and conviction as intimidation.
Freelance journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was found guilty on July 6 of “justifying terrorism” in a brief 2018 commentary about repressive governments radicalizing young people. She described the charges as an “act of intimidation.” A regional correspondent for the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Russia, Prokopyeva was fined $7,000, her computer and cellphone were confiscated not to be returned, her home was raided and her bank accounts frozen.
Journalist jailed two years without trial.
August 27 marks two years behind bars for Aasif Sultan, a reporter who was charged months after his 2018 arrest with “complicity” in “harboring known terrorists.” Communications blackouts in Kashmir have repeatedly delayed hearings in the case. Sultan wrote a cover story for the Kashmir Narrator on a slain Kashmiri militant, whose killing by Indian security forces set off a wave of anti-government demonstrations in Kashmir in July 2016. He has been repeatedly interrogated and asked to reveal his sources by police.
Independent journalist jailed after repeated interrogations and intimidation.
After summoning him for interrogation for the 10th time, Moroccan authorities transferred Omar Radi to court and then to a Casablanca prison in July on charges of rape, sexual assault, receiving foreign funding and collaborating with foreign intelligence. A reporter for the independent Le Desk news website, Radi’s arrest comes after authorities repeatedly detained and interrogated him on an array of unrelated charges and allegedly hacked his phone.
Prison conditions threaten journalist’s health and safety from COVID-19.
Freelance reporter Solafa Magdy appeared in court with her husband last month, where she received another 45-day trial extension. She has experienced medical neglect and inhumane conditions alongside her husband in an Egypt prison. The situation heightens her risk of contracting COVID-19, like an Egyptian journalist who contracted the virus and died in pretrial detention in July. Her case has been repeatedly delayed since arrest last November for covering immigration and human rights in Cairo.
Quest for government information persists nearly two years after journalist’s killing.
In July CPJ submitted a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia calling on the U.S. intelligence community to confirm or deny the existence of documents that may provide information on its awareness of threats to Jamal Khashoggi prior to his murder. Since the Washington Post columnist was brazenly killed inside Istanbul’s Saudi consulate in 2018, the U.S. and UN have not heeded calls for an independent criminal investigation into the Saudi crown prince’s potential involvement.
Fortune would like to hear your voice. Email us at feedback@fortune.com.


fortune--2020-08-03--Visa’s CEO on COVID-19’s effects: ‘We’re doing very little hiring right now’

Al Kelly, the American Express lifer who is now CEO of credit-card giant Visa, was supposed to be in Tokyo right now, attending the summer Olympics his company had planned to sponsor. “I would have flown yesterday,” he told me Thursday.
He’s not alone in measuring what we’ve lost by cancellations on our calendars. Earlier in the week, Visa reported fiscal third-quarter results that told the tale of a shutdown. Revenues declined 17% from the previous year. Earnings fell 22%. Cross-border volume, excluding that of payments inside Europe, where borders are porous, was off 47%. “It’s not a matter of ‘travel is slowed,’ says Kelly. “Travel is stopped.” Visa tracks 189 of 217 countries that are completely or partially closed to visitors.
Visa, with its vast global consumer business, offers a broad view on the economy. Kelly says that while credit-card use has plummeted, debit-card use has held up. In other words, consumers are spending what they have rather than borrowing what they don’t. What they have, by the way, has been vastly affected in recent months by stimulus and relief programs around the world. Kelly says 89 million U.S. households got about $2,000 each in mid-April. They apparently spent it on food and drugs—and video games.
A few other insights:
Most of the decline in spending is coming from higher-income households. This makes sense: Everyone bought staples to shelter in place; rich folks can’t buy an overpriced bottle of wine in a restaurant that’s closed.
Visa’s spending on personnel rose 8% in the quarter because the company continued to expense hiring from late last year. Kelly vowed no COVID-related layoffs this year, but says, “We’re doing very little hiring now.”
The acceleration of digital commerce is a win for Visa. Kelly says Visa gets about 15 cents from all face-to-face commerce, but 43 cents of all e-commerce transactions. Tap-to-pay, where the U.S. is a laggard, is ramping up quickly around the world. This germ-free transaction method accounts for 90% of credit-card payments in 12 countries.
Kelly says working from home has gone well for Visa, though about 10-15% of surveyed workers—the company has 20,000 employees—want to go back, mostly young people and parents of young kids. He envisions an eventual return to the office, but with many electing to come in less frequently, and with offices reconfigured to include more collaboration areas for visiting workers. “I still expect our company to grow, though real estate per employee will change,” he says. “We’re not automatically re-signing leases.”
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aric Jenkins.
NEWSWORTHY
Microsoft is moving ahead with discussions to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations following a weekend conversation between CEO Satya Nadella and President Donald Trump, the company said Sunday. The deal’s not yet a done one, but news on its completion is imminent: "Microsoft will move quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event completing these discussions no later than September 15, 2020," the company said in a statement. Now the question is less of if the deal is happening, but why? And what’s President Trump got to do with it, anyways?
For the first time since 1975, NASA astronauts landed in the water—though this time, they were in a SpaceX capsule. The Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard gently parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday afternoon. It marked a safe end to a historic two-month mission that saw the first commercially built and operated spacecraft carry people to and from orbit. The successful journey now clears a path for another SpaceX launch later this year and potentially tourist flights beginning in 2021. CEO Elon Musk remarked that "this is the result of an incredible, incredible amount of work from people at SpaceX, people at NASA.”
The results of advertisers’ July boycott of Facebook are in, and as expected, they did not result in significant financial damage to the social media giant. Organizers maintained from the start that the #StopHateForProfit boycott was intended to harm Facebook more on a reputational standpoint than on the bottom line. The boycott garnered public support from more than 1,000 advertisers out of a total pool of more than 9 million. Facebook’s top 100 spending advertisers in the first half of the year spent $221.4 million from July 1 through July 29. That’s 12% less than the $251.4 million spent by the top 100 advertisers a year earlier, advertising analytics platform Pathmatics revealed to the New York Times.
Authorities on Friday arrested the mastermind of last month’s major Twitter hack that infiltrated the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, former president Barack Obama, and many, many more. The genius behind the plot? A 17-year old Florida boy. Despite the age, Graham Ivan Clark is being charged as an adult following his arrest in his Tampa apartment. Clark faces 30 felony charges, including fraud. A new piece outlines his background, and how he got his start in the online hacking world. Minecraft scams were an early proving ground.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Movie theaters in the U.S. remain closed for now, but Universal’s theatrical window deal with AMC will be a gamechanger when they open back up. Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw on the significance:
AMC, the largest theater chain in the U.S., will allow Universal to rent new movies at home just 17 days after they debut in theaters, a momentous shift from how the movie business has operated. When major studios release movies now, they need to wait a few months before making them available at home. (Netflix makes its movies available at home sooner, which is why its movies aren’t shown by the biggest theater chains.)
[Jeff] Shell, the CEO of NBCUniversal, has pushed for years to condense this lag time. Studios spend a fortune marketing a new title, collect most of the revenue in the first few weeks and then need to sit on their hands and wait. Movie theaters have resisted changing the model, arguing it would destroy their business.
But when the coronavirus shut down theaters around the world, Universal released several movies once-planned for theaters at home. AMC squawked, vowing to never play Universal movies again, only to come around and make a deal in exchange for a cut of the online sales.
Rival chains are irate, though their fury will likely be mollified in the same way as AMC: money.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The U.S. and EU’s key data-protection deal is dead. How one of the world’s biggest data brokers is adapting By David Meyer
Apple pledged $25 to iPhone users over battery problems. Why is it so hard to collect? By Jeff John Roberts
‘Forcibly taking’ ByteDance’s ‘child:’ How Chinese media sees Microsoft’s possible deal for TikTok By Naomi Xu Elegant
Gen Z is struggling to be productive working from home By Lance Lambert
NBCUniversal’s Peacock hits 10 million signups By Gerry Smith
Instacart shoppers are battling order-grabbing bots By Lizette Chapman and Kartikay Mehrotha
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
The Nickelodeon cult favorite Avatar: The Last Airbender returned to Netflix in May and dominated the streaming platform’s Top 10 list for a record 61 days. More than a decade after the show’s finale, the show’s reemergence has inspired a new generation of fans young and old. They’re making cool new creative content like this 3D reimagination of the show’s opening sequence. Go ahead and show the kids, or enjoy it yourself—you know you want to.
Aric Jenkins
@aricjenkins
aric.jenkins@fortune.com


fortune--2020-08-03--Experts weigh in on how to safely go to public parks

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Parks across the U.S. are seeing a surge in visitors as people try to find safe ways to enjoy the summer weather. From picnics with friends to solo dates with a good book and a blanket, people are craving fresh air. Public parks are there to make it happen.
But with more and more people turning to neighborhood parks as other recreational spaces remain closed, crowding can turn your daily walk into an obstacle course as you attempt to social distancing with other parkgoers. Parents desperate to help their children burn off excess energy now have to worry about the safety of playgrounds. And when people made their New Year’s resolutions to work out more in January, no one expected that a pandemic would make sticking to it even harder.
Fortune asked public health and medical experts around the country to share their strategy for safely utilizing public parks.
Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Dr. James H. Diaz, program director in the LSU School of Public Health: “I carry two things in my shirt pocket when I am out: a 70% ethanol squirt pen and a 70% ethanol-based hand sanitizer that I keep filled. I try to visit parks that are close to home, either very early in the morning or late at night. I walk or jog and avoid crowds and water fountains—I would not use public water fountains at all right now. It’s a good idea to call the park in advance and find out if bathrooms are open and what services are available. When I get home, I wipe off my shoe soles with Clorox wipes and leave them outside to dry.”
Nicolette Louissaint, executive director of Healthcare Ready in Washington, D.C.: “I’m currently working out in a public park myself. I go to less populated areas of the park and try to maintain at least 6 feet—but preferably more distance—between me and the people around me, even when I’m running. I’m taking disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer with me. If I hook my resistance bands on a fence for an exercise, for example, I like having the wipes so I can wipe them down once I’m done. It can be tempting to wipe sweat out of your eyes or touch your face while working out, but I’m very mindful about not touching my face until I can wash my hands again. When working out, it’s been easier for me to wear a neck gaiter instead of the typical face mask; I find that they stay up a little better.”
Dr. Norman Beatty, professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine: “Going to a public park can be safe if we can follow social distancing guidelines, wear our face covering, and use hand sanitizers. When planning a day at the park, try and think of activities that do not involve close contact to others that may also be visiting and enjoying the scenery. It can be tempting to congregate around food carts or rest stops at the park, but it’s important to remember social distancing. Even when we are outdoors, we should continue to socially distance ourselves and try not to cut any corners. These simple measures can help prevent a transmissible moment while visiting our favorite public park.
“Throughout the day try to periodically wash your hands with soap and water or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Remember, most hand sanitizers should be kept out of direct sunlight and the summertime heat; this could potentially weaken or degrade the active components. Also, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are combustible when exposed to an open flame, so keep that in mind.”
Dr. Lindsay Thompson, medical director of the Pediatric Research Hub at the University of Florida: “Parks and outside spaces are wonderful for children, so going for nature walks and getting family exercise should be encouraged. You can make these really fun and special experiences by having scavenger hunts and relay races. However, some playgrounds have remained closed given that they are high touch areas, no one can monitor the health of children and care givers at entry, and it is impossible to implement a frequent cleaning program.
“I personally feel comfortable visiting a public park if others are wearing face coverings, and you can tell everyone is practicing social distancing. I have been in several situations where I have left a public place because the majority of people around me were not following these simple guidelines.”
Dr. Robert Johnson, dean of the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School: “There was a gym I used to go to in the morning, but they’re closed right now. Instead, I’ve been going to the park every morning around 5 a.m. when it’s less crowded. Everyone who was there exercising this morning had a mask on. You should be practicing social distancing as much as you can and make sure you’re wearing a mask if you’re close to people. We know that outside activities are ones where we have the less likelihood of transmitting the virus, so parks can be very safe, but you should not put yourself in a position where you’re with a large group of people.”