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Here’s what you need to know
Netflix decided two heads are better than one. Nestled inside a mixed quarterly earnings report that saw shares of the streaming giant sink by around 10%, Netflix announced that content chief Ted Sarandos will join his boss Reed Hastings as co-CEO.
China returned to growth. The country’s GDP rose 3.2% in the second quarter, beating expectations and avoiding a technical recession. China’s GDP had contracted 6.8% in the first three months of the year.
OPEC+ will keep its production cuts in place until 2022. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said the cuts could be extended if necessary. Current production levels have kept the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, stuck at around $40 per barrel—a sweet spot for OPEC (✦ Quartz member exclusive).
US economic indicators are all over the map. Retail sales jumped a better-than-expected 7.5% in June and 30-year mortgage rates are below 3% for the first time in 50 years, but weekly initial jobless claims remain disappointingly high, and this week’s bank earnings suggest the worst is yet to come. Congress is also working on a new $1.3 trillion relief bill that House speaker Nancy Pelosi has called “not enough.”
Scientists want US vaccine makers to expose healthy people to Covid-19. While risky, so-called “challenge trials” could speed up vaccine development. Elsewhere, China’s state-owned Sinopharm began phase 3 vaccine trials in Abu Dhabi and Johnson & Johnson is shopping doses of its vaccine to the government of Japan and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Meanwhile, Canada, the UK, and the US have accused Russia of trying to hack vaccine development.
The US attorney general slammed companies for appeasing China. Bill Barr took Hollywood and Big Tech to task over censorship and other actions businesses have taken to continue operating in China. Meanwhile, some providers of VPNs, which allow users to bypass China’s Great Firewall, have pulled out of Hong Kong.
Charting Americans’ final wishes
The US funeral home industry, like all businesses these days, has had to adapt to the pandemic. And the handling of bodies has evolved, too: “We have seen an increase in cremation instead of burials since Covid happened,” says Dutch Nie, a spokesperson for the National Funeral Directors Association. But this uptick isn’t strictly a reflection of the pandemic: It falls in line with a trend that began in 2015, and will likely continue.
✦ For members: How to build an anti-racist company
As Black Lives Matter protests prompt organizations around the world to rethink the way they do business, here are some ideas on how to combat injustice:
- Diversity programs aren’t working. Many businesses facing criticism for racist practices have long pledged to devote themselves to change. Clearly, those efforts have failed.
- Go back to the business model. Can corporate diversity alone repair harms like small-business discrimination, predatory lending, and the spread of racist narratives?
- Values don’t know borders. Consumers expect multinationals to live up to their principles wherever they do business.
- It’s an ongoing struggle. South Africa’s worsening income inequality offers a case study in the danger of pursuing non-racialism over anti-racist policies.
✦ To learn more about what it means to create an anti-racist company sign up for a free 7-day Quartz membership.
You Asked about face masks
What are the characteristics of the most effective face mask to protect against COVID 19? —Sallie
Sadly this is still a relevant question as major countries including the US, Brazil, and India, continue to see rising numbers of infections. One way of thinking about it is that the best mask is the one that you actually wear. Writing in The New Yorker, public health expert Atul Gawande referenced a study showing that “if at least sixty percent of the population wore masks that were just sixty-percent effective…the epidemic could be stopped.”
But you asked about the best. So here’s a rundown of what the different masks on the market can do to help protect you and others.
- Cloth masks help protect others from your outgoing germs, but they don’t protect well against incoming germs (especially when the fabric is damp).
- Medical-grade surgical masks are made from melted, synthetic fibers shaped into an extremely fine web. They can keep medical workers from infecting others, but don’t provide as much protection from infection as…
- N95 respirators, which are designed to fit so they form a seal around the nose and mouth. The 95 means they can block at least 95% of incoming particles as small as 0.3 microns.
- KN95 respirators are similar to an N95, but they meet slightly different specifications set by the Chinese government.
Surprising discoveries
Zappos will sell you just one shoe. A pilot program hopes to serve those who wear prosthetics or have two different-sized feet.
Ikea’s newest designer is a dog. Mr. Chuck, an Instagram-famous mini Dachshund, contributed to a collection of activity kits.
No more trick-or-treating at the yakuza’s offices. The Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate has been barred from giving candy to minors.
The US Department of Homeland Security is anti-mask. Leaked documents show the agency is concerned they’re messing with facial recognition technology.
A nuclear explosion should have destroyed this star. Instead, the partial supernova sent it hurtling across the galaxy.
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