Tag Archives: Pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic advances the march of ‘cobots’

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

CHICAGO (Reuters) – While a resurgence in coronavirus cases in Texas has brought many businesses to a screeching halt, eight robots have kept All Axis Machining’s metal fabrication facility in Dallas humming.

The small, nimble robots perform multiple jobs, such as machine-tending, sanding, deburring, part inspection and laser marking, leaving owner Gary Kuzmin far less dependent on manual labor. When all the workers on one shift went into self-quarantine last month, it had no impact on the facility’s productivity.

All Kuzmin had to do was to move a couple of workers from other shifts to supervise the robots. “I have not lost any spindle time because of the pandemic,” he said.

Companies of all sizes are leaning on automation to keep factories running without compromising the health and safety of their workers. Half of the chief financial officers surveyed last month by PricewaterhouseCoopers said they were planning to accelerate automation.

With the U.S. economy grappling with a double-digit unemployment rate, however, industry’s rush to robots will fuel worries about semi-skilled or unskilled workers as low-paid, routine tasks become more likely to be automated.

“It is the most productive thing for us to have the robots,” said Kuzmin. “I don’t even look at a machine these days without thinking how I would automate it.”

Since August 2018, when All Axis Machining began using robots, its productivity has doubled with the same headcount. If not for the robots, the company would have needed to expand its staff of 30 by 50% to keep up with increase in demand.

“We are less dependent upon a semi-skilled employee,” said Kuzmin.

The pandemic has changed companies’ calculations about investments in automation, said Jeremie Capron, research chief at research and investment-advisory firm ROBO Global. “The cost of operating without a robot today in a factory is higher than it was pre-COVID,” he said.

Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at Washington-based the Brookings Institution, says the automation drive will result in a net reduction in the workforce as companies invest in technology not just for social distancing, but also to boost productivity and protect profits from the pandemic-induced recession.

“Technology has improved and gotten cheaper, and the financial pressure on companies is higher,” he said.

He noted, however, that since middle class and lower-paid workers tend to spend a larger share of their income than the higher-paid, it is important that productivity gains eventually result in more jobs.

“If there is… too little sharing of the gains of automation-supported growth, we will wind up with little economic activity,” Muro said.

LOWER COST, FASTER PAYBACK

The affordable cost of the so-called collaborative robots, or “cobots,” promises payback in months, making the changeover easier, even for small and medium-sized enterprises.

All Axis Machining, for example, spent $85,000 per robot and was able to recover the cost in five months. There are cheaper collaborative robots on the market, as well.

One of the most popular cobots sold by Denmark-based Universal Robots – a unit of Massachusetts-based Teradyne Inc. and a market leader in collaborative robotics technology – costs about $35,000, with a payback period of three to four months.

The robots are very easy to use, safe to be around and can easily be adapted to new tasks. It takes just hours to train employees to work with them, saving companies huge training expense.

Although they are not suited for heavy-duty jobs, they are designed to work alongside humans, making them the robots of choice in the age of social distancing.

California-based DCL Logistics, a third-party logistics company, decided to employ cobots to manage a 30% increase in orders in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak.

Normally, the company would have hired temporary workers to deal with the surge in orders. But bringing in new workers was fraught with safety risks, said Chief Revenue Officer Brian Tu. The robots have led to a 300% increase in productivity and a 60% jump in labor cost savings, Tu said.

DCL plans to deploy more cobots this year at its facilities in California and Kentucky.

At All Axis Machining, the cobots have allowed owner Kuzmin to stagger the shifts. The facility now runs three shifts seven days a week, with robots working the late night shift alone, without any roving inspector.

This has allowed workers in the facility to stay 30 feet apart from each other. Having seen the benefits, the company is automating its remaining machines as well.

Kuzmin, who also runs a robotics services company, says several Dallas-based manufacturers have approached him recently to install similar robots in their factories.

ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

Universal Robots is fielding inquiries from companies seeking social distancing solutions, as well as tools to re-shore production and make their operations more flexible.

“Some companies… are talking about dozens and dozens of robots,” said Joe Campbell, senior manager of applications development at Universal Robots.

Still, the virus-induced recession is keeping many companies on the sidelines, wary of making new investments.

Tacoma, Washington-based Tool Gauge, which makes metal and plastic parts and assemblies for aerospace companies, including Boeing Co., planned to add two mobile industrial robots to its fleet of two cobots and 10 industrial robots before the novel coronavirus hammered the aviation industry.

But Tool Gauge put the robots on hold after a production shutdown at Boeing’s Washington state factories and an overall drop in orders, General Manager Jim Lee said.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Joseph White and Dan Grebler)

U.S. Treasury chief sees ‘significant amount’ for schools in next coronavirus aid bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that he expects the next coronavirus aid bill to provide a “significant amount of money” to help U.S. K-12 schools to reopen safely.

Mnuchin made the comment during a U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee hearing at which he also said more funding was needed to help businesses hardest hit by the pandemic, such as travel related industries.

The Trump administration has been pushing for schools to reopen in the fall, which would allow many parents to return to work and help revive the economy.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chris Reese)

Treasury’s Mnuchin open to blanket forgiveness for smaller business relief loans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday policymakers should consider blanket forgiveness for all smaller businesses that received “Paycheck Protection Program” loans.

Mnuchin told lawmakers that they should consider such an approach to reduce complexity, coupled with some form of fraud protection.

He also said the Trump administration supports adding more funds to the $660 billion program, as well as allowing especially hard-hit businesses to apply for a second emergency loan.

He did not define how small a loan would have to be to qualify for automatic forgiveness, and added it should be paired with some form of fraud protection without going into detail. Several business and banking groups have pushed for blanket forgiveness for all loans under $150,000, arguing the requirements for applying for forgiveness under the program are too complex.

His comments come as Congress is preparing further economic relief legislation to support businesses and people harmed by pandemic lockdowns. Roughly $100 billion remains in the PPP, a forgivable loan program created by the initial stimulus package, is set to expire on Aug. 8.

Mnuchin added that he would also support applying some sort of “revenue test” to future PPP loans to make sure the remaining funds go to businesses that need it the most. The PPP has come under criticism after wealthy and larger companies secured loans under the program, which was billed as relief for small businesses.

“This time, we need to have a revenue test and make sure that money is going to businesses that have significant revenue declines,” he said.

He also said he would support efforts to set aside a portion of remaining PPP funds for minority-owned businesses, amid concerns from some lawmakers that those businesses were struggling to secure funding.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

End of the jumbo: British Airways retires 747 early due to coronavirus crisis

By Sarah Young, Maria Ponnezhath and Tim Hepher

(Reuters) – British Airways, the world’s largest operator of Boeing 747’s, will retire its entire jumbo jet fleet with immediate effect after the COVID-19 pandemic sent air travel into free fall.

For over 50 years, Boeing’s “Queen of the Skies” has been the world’s most easily recognized jetliner with its humped fuselage and four engines. But its days were already numbered before the pandemic struck earlier this year.

British Airways (BA) had been planning to retire the aircraft in 2024, but with passenger numbers decimated this year, and experts forecasting it will be years before they recover, the airline said it was unlikely its 747’s would operate commercially again.

“It is with great sadness that we can confirm we are proposing to retire our entire 747 fleet with immediate effect,” BA said in a statement on Thursday.

The 747 democratized global air travel in the 1970’s, but fell behind modern twin-engine aircraft and now trails newer planes in fuel efficiency, making it expensive to run.

The move by BA comes after Australia’s Qantas Airways said in June it would retire its remaining 747 fleet immediately, six months ahead of schedule.

BA’s predecessor airline BOAC first introduced the 747 on the London-New York route in 1971 after a one-year delay caused by a dispute with pilots over the terms for flying the new jet.

Hugh Dibley, a former BOAC captain and racing driver who joined the airline in 1958, said the 747’s introduction marked a new era, but was beset with teething problems with its engines.

Landing and taxiing also took some getting used to, from a cockpit positioned almost 30 feet above the ground – or more when angling the nose higher just before touching the runway.

“It was a delight to fly as it was so stable. The initial issue was its height from the ground. It was like landing a block of flats from the 2nd floor,” Dibley told Reuters.

BA’s jumbos are the 747-400 model, the most-sold version of the jet which was introduced in 1989. After BA, only a handful of airlines including Rossiya Airlines and Air China continue to operate them, according to Cirium data.

A newer version, the 747-8, was designed to refresh the brand and counter Airbus’s A380, but has mainly prospered as a freighter and Boeing is soon expected to follow Airbus in announcing a halt to production of such four-engine behemoths.

The end of the runway for BA’s jumbo fleet comes as the company, owned by IAG, faces a battle for survival because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Just as its introduction at BA was marred by labor uncertainty, its retirement almost five decades later comes as BA plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs, or 28% of its workforce, to prepare for a slump in air travel.

U.S.-based Boeing and its suppliers signaled the end of the plane when they set the final number of parts it would need for the 747 jumbo jet program at least a year ago.

(Reporting by Sarah Young in London, Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru, Tim Hepher in Paris, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Potter)

U.S. state, local leaders should be as forceful as possible on masks, Fauci says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Friday said state and local leaders should be as forceful as possible on wearing masks to prevent spreading the deadly coronavirus, as the state of Georgia and its major cities tussle over masks.

“I would urge the leaders -the local political leaders in states and cities and towns – to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with the Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Nonetheless, Fauci said he was cautiously optimistic that the country is on the road to getting the pandemic under control, noting that a promising candidate for a vaccine will go into an “advanced phase three trial by the end of this month.”

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Over 1 million: India joins U.S., Brazil in grim coronavirus club

By Zeba Siddiqui

MUMBAI (Reuters) – India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller towns.

Given India’s population of around 1.3 billion, experts say, one million is relatively low – but the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink.

The pandemic has surged in the country in recent weeks as it spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as the third-most-infected country last week.

Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones in several states this week, including the largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub Bengaluru, where cases have spiked.

But officials have struggled to enforce the lockdowns and keep people indoors.

India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the total to 1,003,832, with 25,602 deaths from COVID-19, federal health ministry data showed. That compares to 3.6 million cases in the United States and 2 million in Brazil – countries with less than a third of India’s population.

Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from hitting its peak.

“In the coming months, we are bound to see more and more cases, and that is the natural progression of any pandemic,” said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the nonprofit Public Health Foundation of India.

“As we move forward, the goal has to be lower mortality,” he said. “A critical challenge states will face is how to rationally allocate hospital beds.”

The last four months of the pandemic sweeping India have exposed severe gaps in the country’s healthcare system, which is one of the most poorly funded and has for years lacked enough doctors or hospital beds.

The Indian government has defended a strict lockdown it imposed in March to contain the virus spread, saying it helped keep death rates low and allowed time to beef up the healthcare infrastructure. But public health experts say shortages remain and could hit hard in the coming months.

“As a public health measure, I don’t think the lockdown had much impact. It just delayed the virus spread,” said Dr. Kapil Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at New Delhi’s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The million cases so far recorded likely left out many asymptomatic ones, he said. “It’s a gross underestimate.”

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take concrete steps to contain the pandemic, tweeting that the number of infections will double to two million by August 10 at this pace.

Millions of migrant workers, left stranded in the cities by the lockdown in March, took long journeys home on foot, some dying on the way while others left without work or wages.

Several states including Bihar, to which many of the migrants returned, have witnessed a surge in cases in recent weeks as the lockdown has been eased to salvage a sagging economy.

Babu predicts India will not see a sharp peak and decline.

“The surges are shifting from one place to another, so we cannot say there will be one peak for the whole country. In India, it’s going to be a sustained plateau for some time and then it will go down.”

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Additional reporting by Chandini Monnappa, Derek Francis and Abhirup Roy; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and William Mallard)

Florida reports biggest one-day increase in COVID-19 deaths since pandemic started

(Reuters) – Florida reported on Thursday the largest one-day increase in deaths from the novel coronavirus since the pandemic began and its second-largest increase in cases ever.

Florida announced 13,965 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases in the state and the center of the latest outbreak to over 315,775, according to the state health department.

Florida’s COVID deaths rose by 156 to a total of 4,782, surpassing its previous one-day record of 133 new deaths on July 12.

Hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 was the highest ever reported at 8,626 currently hospitalized, up 321 in the past 24 hours, according to a state agency.

(Writing by Lisa Shumaker, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Americans on COVID-19 jobless benefits spent more than when working, study shows

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – Americans who received enhanced unemployment benefits due to the coronavirus pandemic spent more than when they were working, a study released on Thursday said, adding to concerns about a steep fall in spending when the emergency benefits expire.

The $600 weekly supplement added to jobless benefits as part of the CARES Act helped unemployed households spend 10% more after receiving benefits than they did before the pandemic, according to research by the JP Morgan Chase Institute.

Researchers analyzed transactions for 61,000 households that received unemployment benefits between March and May. Spending dropped for all households as the virus spread and led to business shutdowns, but then rose when households began receiving jobless benefits, the study found.

That contrasts with a typical recession, when households receiving unemployment benefits usually cut spending by 7% because regular jobless benefits amount to only a fraction of a person’s prior earnings, the research found.

The analysis highlighted how the additional unemployment benefits are helping to prop up the U.S. economy and consumer spending after the pandemic led to a surge in joblessness across the country.

More than 30 million Americans are estimated to be receiving unemployment benefits – and they could be pushed off an income cliff when the supplemental benefits, which are due to expire at the end of July, are withdrawn.

“Our estimates suggest that expiration will result in large spending cuts, with potentially negative effects on both households and macroeconomic activity,” the researchers wrote.

The data also reflected the financial pain faced by households that encountered big delays in collecting benefits after states across the country were overwhelmed by applications.

Households that had to wait several weeks for their first unemployment check to arrive cut spending by about 20%, the study found. Spending recovered after the checks arrived.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; editing by Richard Pullin)

Key U.S. lawmakers back unions’ call for new airline bailout

By David Shepardson and Tracy Rucinski

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Key U.S. House Democrats are backing a push by airline unions for a new round of government bailouts to keep workers employed in the face of tens of thousands of possible layoffs this fall.

Representative Peter DeFazio, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and other Democrats are circulating a letter to colleagues calling for the extension of payroll assistance. In March, Congress approved $32 billion for airlines and contractors in exchange for the companies keeping workers on the job through Sept. 30. Airline unions in June sought another $32 billion to keep workers employed through March 31.

The lawmakers’ letter said “with the current resurgence of COVID-19 in several states across the country and a vaccine for the virus yet to be developed, passenger demand for air travel will not recover before” Sept. 30 and “hundreds of thousands of airline workers may be fired or furloughed starting October 1.”

Airline unions on Wednesday asked lawmakers to sign on to the DeFazio letter.

On Wednesday, American Airlines said it was sending 25,000 notices of potential furloughs to front-line workers. American had already warned that furloughs would be hard to avoid as pandemic-hit revenue remains more sluggish than the airline had hoped.

American said Wednesday it would be “supportive” of any legislation that would protect employee jobs, while an industry trade group previously said airlines were not seeking additional assistance “at this time.”

United Airlines has sent 36,000 furlough notices, representing about 45% of workers, and Southwest Airlines has warned job losses will be hard to avoid.

Delta Air Lines Inc said this week it believed it could avoid furloughs in the fall after about 17,000 employees signed up for early departure deals.

After boosting summer flying following some signs of pent-up leisure demand in May and June, some airlines are now scaling back their schedules due to a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Steve Orlofsky)

Germany urges WHO to hasten review of its handling of pandemic

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s health minister urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) to speed up its review of how it handled the pandemic, apparently signalling Europe’s tougher line on the United Nations body.

Berlin, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has so far largely shielded the organization from the most intense criticism by Washington, which wants to leave the WHO because of its alleged excessive closeness to China.

But now Germany seems to be taking a more assertive position.

Spahn told reporters he had discussed the review of the WHO’s management of the crisis with its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus twice over the last 20 days.

“In both conversations I encouraged him very clearly to launch this independent commission of experts and to expedite its launch,” Spahn said.

The WHO said last week it was setting up an independent panel to review its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response by governments.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and not doing enough to question Beijing’s actions at the start of the crisis. Tedros has dismissed the suggestions and said his agency kept the world informed.

Tedros has said the panel will provide an interim report to an annual meeting of health ministers in November and present a “substantive report” next May.

Spahn said the review was important now, even if the pandemic is still raging across the world, because “we can already draw conclusions.”

This could lead to quick actions over the body’s governance and to improve “cooperation between the political and the scientific level” of the organisation, Spahn added.

EU governments have said the review should be followed by a reform of the organisation, a possibility already being discussed with the United States and other members of the G7 group of rich countries, officials told Reuters.

One official had said the aim was to ensure WHO’s independence.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio in Brussles, Joseph Nasr and Andeas Rinke in Berlin, Editing by William Maclean)