COVID-19 NOTE

Over the last two months, both infection and fatality rates have risen globally. COVID victims are getting younger. But it remains a positive fact that vaccination, in whatever context, reduces death rates and hospitalisation. However, the potential to circulate that comes with ‘re-opening’ enhances the virus' capacity to mutate. The requisite caution and patience are not a given in [...]

Efficient vaccination programmes are bearing fruit. However, the challenge posed by variants combined with the monumental task of vaccinating the globe threatens to compromise these encouraging signs, pushing complete ‘victory’ over the virus further out of sight. Since our last COVID-19 note, new infections have continued to decline globally and steadily. Last week, there were ‘just’ 3.1 million new [...]

New, more contagious, and perhaps more resistant variants are derailing global efforts to bring the pandemic to an end. Widespread vaccination and its contingent herd immunity looks likely to take longer than anticipated, kicking a return to normalcy further down the road. Those countries worst affected like the US, the UK, and Israel are beginning to show signs of [...]

As 2021 dawns, optimism turns to anxiety with vaccine delays and the velocity of a new variant of the COVID virus. This, in turn, affects the economic outlook. 2020 ended with the promise of several vaccines and the optimism engendered by vaccination campaigns that were just about to start (in rich countries). Yet, these hopeful prospects have, for the [...]

US post-Thanksgiving surge upon a surge is breaking sombre COVID records while the record levels of US government funding is to be thanked for the unhoped-for speed of the vaccine's arrival. Because R rates are so vital and so sensitive to social activity, even a low level of lockdown can deliver a marked improvement. Whatever opinion you hold about [...]

In the US and Europe containment policies and public compliance are left wanting in the face of a major second/third wave. The rich world is pinning its hopes - both in terms of health and economics - on the Pfizer vaccine. In Europe and the US, the long-predicted autumn wave of COVID-19 is well underway – the pandemic is [...]

Public fatigue and resistance to piecemeal public policy are ill-suited to resist the current resurgence of the pandemic. Now increasingly identified as a syndemic – it will take more than a vaccine to right the economic, societal and public health wrongs of Covid-19. Globally, the pandemic is surging (but with a lower mortality rate than in the spring). Over [...]

Covid is both in retreat and resurgence depending on where you are. Many countries haven’t seen the last of lockdowns but ‘living with the virus’ is a preferred policy choice - both for economic and social reasons. Surging unemployment is inevitable in the autumn as is major long term contraction in certain sectors - namely travel and tourism. The [...]