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Essence Festival 2020 Put On Hold Amid COVID-19
New Balance Is Making Masks To Help Hospitals Battle Coronavirus
The show must not go on — at least for the time being.
The coronavirus crisis has gotten everybody and every- thing messed up right now.
And after a couple of weeks of evaluating how this global pandemic would impact busi- ness, the producers of the Essence Festival decided to postpone its annual party with a purpose in New Orleans dur- ing the 4th of July holiday.
“Based on developments over the past couple of weeks, including updates from our city and health partners, we are officially announcing that we will move the 2020
Essence CEO, Michelle Ebanks, Essence Ventures Founder & Chairman, Richellieu Dennis, and Essence Chief Content & Cre- ative Officer Moana Luu.
In addition to a $2 million dollar pledge in support of coronavirus relief efforts, New Balance is using its stateside manufacturing busi- ness for a more direct line of help.
The brand announced that it's producing prototype face masks at its Lawrence, MA factory, with intent to scale production to its other New England factories in the near future. New Balance has often been praised for its U. S.- based production, which they say surpasses 4 million pairs of sneakers annually state- side.
"We are coordinating our efforts with government offi- cials and local medical insti- tutions as well other U. S. consortiums and testing facil- ities," said New Balance in a statement.
NEW BALANCE MASK
The announcement comes as hospitals around the coun- try (and the world) are deal- ing with mask shortages for both workers and patients. At the time of this writing, the U. S. has surpassed 104,000 total coronavirus cases, with nearly 1,700 deaths reported.
ESSENCE Festival of Culture closer to the fall,” read a state-
ment from Essence Communi- cations, issued on Friday.
Florida Sees Sharp Spike In Coronavirus Infections As Fears Grow
Fears are growing that Florida could be another coronavirus hotspot after a sharp increase in infections in the last 24 hours and nearly two dozen more deaths.
Health officials said Satur- day morning they have seen 863 additional positive COVID-19 cases, which brought the total tally of cases to 3,763.
More than 600,000 people around the world have tested positive for coronavirus. On
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Friday, the U.S. surpassed China - where the virus was first detected late last year - after recording more than 100,000 infections.
Florida is now the fourth
most-hit state in the United States, after New York, New Jersey, and California, ac- cording to data by health of- ficials and Johns Hopkins University.
Google Commits $810 Million To Coronavirus Relief Efforts
Google and parent Alpha- bet are pitching in to help small businesses, health or- ganizations and governments dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The internet company has earmarked more than $800 million for coronavirus relief, about three-fourths of which ($610 million) is in the form of Google Ad credits to small and midsize businesses and governmental orgs, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced Friday.
In addition, the company is working with supplier Magid Glove & Safety to produce face masks for health work-
ers battling COVID-19, with the goal of providing 2 mil- lion-3 million in the coming weeks to the CDC Founda- tion, Pichai wrote in a blog post.
Google itself is expected to take a big hit because of the
crisis: For 2020, the com- pany’s total net revenue is projected to be about $127.5 billion, according to a Cowen & Co. report this week, down $28.6 billion versus Cowen’s prior estimate (an 18% de- cline).
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