COVID-19 Monitor

Last Updated:October 15, 2020

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Watch Out For China Buying Spree, NATO Warns (Forbes) Published on: April 18, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

Watch out for Chinese companies swooping in with buckets of cash to buy strategic stakes, or majority control in U.S. and European companies as asset prices fall due to the pandemic.
“The geopolitical effects of the pandemic could be significant,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in web conference of defense ministers on Wednesday.
“Some allies (are) more vulnerable for situations where critical infrastructure can be sold out,” he said.

Canada, U.S. extend border restrictions 30 days to control coronavirus spread (Reuters) Published on: April 18, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business, Economic Impact

Canada and the United States have agreed to extend border restrictions for another 30 days to help control the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday.
Trudeau said the agreement is unchanged, and he expected shipments of medical supplies such as masks to continue to cross the border.
Quebec is the epicenter of Canada’s outbreak, with seniors in care homes accounting for most of the province’s 805 deaths.

US banks brace for surge in loan losses (FT) Published on: April 18, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

Big US banks made one thing clear this week: they are battening down the hatches to deal with an expected surge in loan losses as the pandemic casts serious doubts over the capacity of consumers and companies to pay their debt.
Loan loss charges at six big American banks reached a total of $25.4bn in the first quarter.
This marks a 350 per cent surge in collective provisions across Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley versus a year earlier, as charges soared to levels not seen since the financial crisis.

Seoul’s Full Cafes, Apple Store Lines Show Mass Testing Success (Bloomberg) Published on: April 18, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

While both the U.S. and South Korea confirmed their first virus cases around the same time in late January, the number of infections in the U.S. has swelled to more than 700,000 while Korea “flattened the curve” last month and cases have slowed to just over 10,000.
Moon’s popularity had soared in recent weeks, thanks in part to South Korea gaining global attention for its handling of the virus outbreak.
“We did pretty well in prevention — that’s finding the patients and taking quarantine measures — thanks to our prior experience with MERS outbreak,” said Kim Yoon, professor of health policy and management at Seoul National University’s College of Medicine, referring to the 2015 outbreak that killed 38 Koreans.

Lack of coordination and medical disinformation in Canadian self-assessment tools for COVID-19 (medRxiv) Published on: April 18, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

As SARS-CoV-2 threatens to overwhelm health systems in Canada, it is imperative that provinces are able to plan and manage an effective and reduced risk response.
We designed four different prototypical patients with a combination of common COVID-19 symptoms and opportunities for exposure who were made to self-assess using the 10 provincial COVID-19 self-assessment tools on 1 April.
Thus, there is not a single, evidence-based Canadian standard of care simply for self-assessment.
Without consistency in public health guidance, Canadians cannot appropriately self-isolate to mitigate community transmission, nor can the necessary valid and reliable data be collected to inform critical epidemiological models that help guide pandemic response.

China’s economy: the risk of a second coronavirus wave (FT) Published on: April 17, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

On the same day that Chinese authorities began to relax a 77-day quarantine on Wuhan, the city that exported coronavirus across China and ultimately to every corner of the world, a small town on the country’s border with Russia was locked down for the second time in three months.
But now Suifenhe faces a real crisis, after Chinese nationals returning home from Russia triggered a much-feared “second wave” of infections. The city has more than 320 confirmed cases and almost 1,500 people in centralised quarantine facilities.
US sportswear company Nike said this week that 80 per cent of its China stores were open in cities such as Shanghai, which shows few visible signs of the pandemic.
Car factories in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, have restored operations with little disruption, other than the use of face masks and other protective gear and social distancing in the canteen.

New York Fed Leader Says U.S. Recovery Unlikely to Be Swift (WSJ) Published on: April 17, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said Friday that even a swift resolution to the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to bring a fast recovery to the U.S. economy.
“Even as the pandemic passes, even as the restrictions are relaxed gradually over time, people may take quite a while before they are willing to get back on airplanes, on trains, or go to the theater or go to concerts or things like that,” Mr. Williams said.
Mr. William’s remarks came after a speech on Thursday in which he said the Fed’s effort to bolster the economy will be in place for some time to come.

Trudeau announces aid for struggling energy sector, including $1.7B to clean up orphan wells (CBC) Published on: April 17, 2020 | Category: Canadian Business

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced $1.7 billion to clean up orphan wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as well as aid for rural businesses and people working in the arts and culture sectors.
During today’s daily briefing outside his residence at Rideau Cottage, Trudeau also announced the government will establish a $750 million emissions reduction fund, with a focus on methane, to create jobs through efforts to cut pollution.
Trudeau said the government is also working to expand credit for medium-sized energy companies so they can maintain operations and keep their employees.

U.S. airlines sitting on $10 billion owed to consumers for canceled flights, lawmakers say (Reuters) Published on: April 17, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

U.S. airlines are estimated to be sitting on more than $10 billion in travel vouchers that should have been cash refunds from canceled flights, a group of senators released on Friday.
Many U.S. airlines are cancelling between 60% and 80% of their flights, and under federal law passengers on those flights are entitled to full refunds, Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal said in a statement.
“However, many airlines have been obfuscating this right by offering travel vouchers as the default option, requiring passengers to take burdensome steps to request refunds instead,” they said.

How to restart national economies during the coronavirus crisis (McKinsey) Published on: April 17, 2020 | Category: Leadership

We have seen a range of responses, from drastic (the complete lockdown of the Wuhan region in China) to more gradual (restrictions on public gatherings and the promotion of physical distancing in some European countries and North America).
Yet tremendous uncertainty remains about what to do next, on both fronts. Most national health systems, particularly in some emerging markets, are insufficiently prepared for the task at hand.
In this article, we propose two frameworks for restarting an economy. The first is designed to help governments, the private sector, and nonprofits think through when to open their economies, and the second outlines an approach for how to do so.

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