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Daily Brief

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Mike Luckovich)

In other news, the University of Washington model cited by the White House in the past now projects we'll see anywhere from 186,000 to 244,000 coronavirus deaths by November based on current trends.

Meanwhile, exports fell even further down the hole in May to the lowest level since the Great Recession.

Exports declined from the prior month by 4.4% to $144.5 billion, the weakest since November 2009, the department said. Imports fell 0.9% to $199.1 billion, the lowest since July 2010.

Imports (largely from China) may turn positive in the June data while exports keep falling.

Finally, scientists in London are warning that COVID-19 can lead to brain damage that is poorly understood and may manifest long after patients have "recovered" from the initial illness.

A study by researchers at University College London described 43 cases of patients with COVID-19 who suffered either temporary brain dysfunction, strokes, nerve damage or other serious brain effects. [...]

COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, is largely a respiratory illness that affects the lungs, but neuroscientists and specialist brain doctors say emerging evidence of its impact on the brain is concerning.

"My worry is that we have millions of people with COVID-19 now. And if in a year's time we have 10 million recovered people, and those people have cognitive deficits ... then that's going to affect their ability to work and their ability to go about activities of daily living," Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at Western University in Canada, told Reuters in an interview.

It's concerning that even people who've been asymptomatic may still develop underlying damage that we can't see. That's especially concerning since millions are being infected now.