COVID-19 Monitor

Last Updated:October 15, 2020

Navigator Sight is an AI-powered news service for decision makers to stay abreast of the issues that matter most. As readers engage with a story, our machine learning algorithm improves. View updates here or sign up below to receive them in your inbox.

Get Notifications

Receive email updates. Subscribe now.

Browse:

Latest All Posts Topics

Canadian Business Economic Impact Global Response Leadership

Navigator Sight

Build your own monitor: Each Sight monitor can be customized to your organisation’s needs and continually improves through proprietary machine learning.

Get In Touch:

(416) 642-6440 info@navltd.com

All Posts

Federal unemployment checks will cut off in weeks. Here’s what might happen next. (Poynter) Published on: July 8, 2020 | Category: Global Response

A survey from Korn Ferry found that fewer than a third of workers said it’s “highly likely” they’ll be back when it reopens; and half said they’re fearful to return due to health reasons, but most said they trust their employer to do a good job.
Even when they are cleared to do so, many professionals say they will not be going back to the office, with half saying they are afraid to return.
Half (50 percent) say they are fearful of going back due to health concerns, even though 75 percent say they believe their employer will create a safe and healthy work environment for them.

Canada eyes longer-term debt as servicing costs fall on lower rates: source (Reuters) Published on: July 8, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business, Economic Impact

Canada is eyeing issuing longer-term debt to take advantage of low interest rates, and expects servicing costs to be lower this fiscal year than was forecast last year despite the billions in emergency spending due to COVID-19, a government source said.
In December, Canada said it expected public debt charges to be C$23.7 billion ($17.4 billion) in the 2020-21 fiscal year starting on April 1. But a government source said the new estimate would be lower despite a much higher deficit than had been expected.
“We took on debt so Canadians wouldn’t have to,” Trudeau said at a news conference.
The Bank of Canada slashed its benchmark rate in March by a total of 1.5 percentage points to 0.25%. It has said it does not intend to reduce rates any further.

Prioritizing health: A prescription for prosperity (McKinsey) Published on: July 8, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

As the whole world reimagines public health and rebuilds its economy, we have a unique opportunity not merely to restore the past but to dramatically advance broad-based health and prosperity.
We then determine the impact the disease burden reduction could have on population health, the economy, and wider welfare over the period to 2040. We conduct our analysis for almost 200 countries; our global, regional, and income-level analyses are aggregated from the country-level analysis.
Economists estimate that about one-third of economic growth in advanced economies in the past century could be attributed to improvements in the health of global populations. Research focused on more recent years has found that health contributed almost as much to income growth as education.

How Canadians and Americans are responding differently to wearing face masks (CTV News) Published on: July 7, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

Canadians are more likely than Americans to praise their government’s handling of COVID-19 and keep their hands to themselves in public, but less likely to wear masks when out of the house, according to recent polling data.
Nearly three in five Canadians – 58 per cent – reported as of June 11 that they were regularly wearing face masks when out in public.
This was one of the lower rates of face-mask usage, as only six of the 25 other countries surveyed reported less take-up of the masks: the United Kingdom (31 per cent), Australia (21 per cent) and the four surveyed Scandinavian nations, with Denmark at the very bottom at three per cent.

US small-business recovery after the COVID-19 crisis (McKinsey) Published on: July 7, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

After the 2008 recession, larger companies recovered to their precrisis contribution to GDP in an average of four years, while smaller ones took an average of six.
Among respondents to our survey, close to a third were operating at a loss or breaking even prior to the crisis.
Navigating the current crisis and thriving in the next normal will require significant changes in business and operating models for all businesses. Since early in the COVID-19 crisis, around 60 per cent of restaurants in the country have added curbside pickup, and more than a third of consumers who have ordered food for in-store or curbside pickup were first-time users of the service.

The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay (The Atlantic) Published on: July 7, 2020 | Category: Leadership

Many American public-health specialists are at risk of burning out as the coronavirus surges back.
Popescu is one of many public-health experts who have been preparing for and battling the pandemic since the start of the year. They’re not treating sick people, as doctors or nurses might be, but are instead advising policy makers, monitoring the pandemic’s movements, modeling its likely trajectory, and ensuring that hospitals are ready.
America isn’t just facing a shortfall of testing kits, masks, or health-care workers. It is also looking at a drought of expertise, as the very people whose skills are sorely needed to handle the pandemic are on the verge of burning out.

Unemployment Expected to Reach Highest Level Since Great Depression (WSJ) Published on: July 7, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

Unemployment rates in the world’s advanced economies will end the year higher than at any time since the Great Depression and not return to their pre-pandemic levels until 2022 at the earliest, the Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Tuesday.
Jobless rates could be even higher if a second wave of outbreaks leads to fresh, if partial lockdowns, the OECD said.
Even if further outbreaks are avoided—an outcome the OECD labels the “optimistic” scenario—the jobless rate is expected to fall only gradually, to 7.7% by the end of 2021. In the event of a second wave, it is expected to stand at 8.9%.

Lockdown heroes: will they ever get a raise? (FT) Published on: July 7, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

The pandemic has upended the hierarchy of work, demonstrating that many of the people critical to the functioning of a modern economy are also among the least well paid — from the nurses treating Covid-19 patients to the warehouse and delivery workers who provide vital supplies.
Many also face the kind of precarious existence that results in part from the flexible labour market policies of the last four decades — lack of job security or control over hours, an inability to save and, especially in the US, little or no paid sick leave.
In the wake of the financial crisis just over a decade ago, there was a similar debate about how capitalism’s rough edges should be smoothed, but most peoples’ experience of the post-crisis years was of austerity rather than inclusion.

US online grocery sales hit record $7.2 billion in June (TechCrunch) Published on: July 6, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

According to new research released today by Brick Meets Click and Mercatus, U.S. online grocery sales hit a record $7.2 billion in June, up 9% over May, as 45.6 million households turned to online grocery pickup and delivery services for a larger portion of their grocery needs.
This figure is higher than the $4 billion seen in March 2020, when the U.S. first went under coronavirus lockdowns. Since then, online grocery sales have been growing quickly — jumping to $5.3 billion in April, then $6.6 billion in May, as more consumers shifted their shopping to online services, grocery included.
The growth isn’t just due to a large influx of new customers to online grocery, but also due to more frequent orders.
Customers may be ordering from online services not only for their large “stocking up” trips, but also for those smaller grocery runs they would often do in between — to grab ingredients for their weekly recipes or to replace the more quickly depleted items, like milk, bread and other staples, perhaps.

Poll finds 81% of Canadians say the Canada-U.S. border should remain closed (The Globe and Mail) Published on: July 6, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

More than eight in 10 Canadians say the Canada-U.S. border should remain closed to non-essential travellers for the foreseeable future, according to a new Nanos Research survey.
The survey suggests that there is strong support across regions and age groups for keeping the border closed.
“The response is actually quite surprising considering we are a border country that relies on the United States for our livelihood … [it] suggests that Canadians have a very high level of anxiety about what’s happening in the pandemic in the United States,” Pollster Nik Nanos said.

Newer Posts Older Posts