https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/walgreens-reports-75-million-of-looting-damage-last-quarter-1.1465174

(Bloomberg) – Damage related to looting cost Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. at least $75 million, offering a look at the cost of U.S. unrest for one of the nation’s largest retailers.

Walgreens said the estimate includes store damage and lost inventory through May, when the company’s fiscal third quarter ended, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Store closures during protests also hurt sales, the company said.

Demonstrations, most of which were peaceful, surged across the U.S. in May following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Some were accompanied by looting. With about 9,300 locations in the U.S., Walgreens is one of the largest U.S. retailers by store count.

The company “continues to monitor developments and assess the degree of the damage and expects additional charges to be incurred in subsequent periods associated with these events,” Walgreens said in the filing.

Walgreens gave an unusually detailed assessment of the cost associated with the unrest. The retail industry is also grappling with unprecedented shutdowns and a sudden shift in consumer behavior following the outbreak of Covid-19.

Shares of Walgreens have fallen 33% in 2020, compared with a drop of about 2% for the S&P 500 Index.

https://www.inquisitr.com/6163313/florida-covid-scandal/

Major Potential Scandal As Florida Clinics Are Over-Reporting COVID Cases By Almost 90 Percent

A major scandal for the healthcare system in Florida is brewing after an investigation has found that hospitals are over-reporting their positive coronavirus rates by substantial margins.

The investigation, conducted by Fox 35 News’s Robert Guaderrama, was originally launched after reporters found it unusual hundreds of hospitals and testing companies were reporting a 100 percent infection rate from administered tests.

This would mean that every single person who received a test was sick with the virus — an unlikely scenario in even the most hard-hit of places.

However, after reporters looked into the data, they found very different results.

For example, Orlando Health had originally claimed that 98 percent of all those who had taken COVID-19 tests had tested positive. After Fox 35 News contacted the facility, they claimed that there were errors in the data. The amended number suggests that just 9.4 percent of patients tested positive — a change of almost 90 percent.

Similarly, Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had posted a positivity rate of 76 percent on the state website. A spokesperson for the hospital later claimed that “this does not reflect” their true findings, and the rate is actually around six percent.

Though reporters have sought to understand how there could be such a major discrepancy in the data, they received no response.

“It’s not the clinics. They are reporting the number correctly and it is getting changed on the FL Dept of Health website. They don’t know how or why it’s getting changed,” she wrote.

The fact that negative tests have not been reported could have major implications for the true Florida coronavirus positivity rate, which currently stands at 12.6 percent.