ISA Coronavirus Update (17th of August)

Daily Summary

There are now nearly 22 million known cases of the coronavirus around the world, with an average of 260,000 new cases being diagnosed on a daily basis.  The official number of fatalities from the outbreak now stands at 773,000.

More than 31% of the known fatalities from the coronavirus have now been found in Latin America, with Brazil and Mexico accounting for nearly two-thirds of all of the fatalities in that region.

India has overtaken the United States as the country with the most new cases being diagnosed, and India is carrying out only 10% of the testing that the US is on a per capita basis.

The Andean region of South America remains a hotspot for the coronavirus, with large numbers of new cases being found in countries such as Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

European countries are struggling to slow the spread of new outbreaks of the coronavirus across that region that are the result, in part, of the region’s reopening of borders to boost tourism within Europe.

Lockdown measures in South Africa were eased this week after the government determined that the recent coronavirus outbreak in that country had reached its peak.

Key Economic Developments

Japan’s Economy Falls Further: In the second quarter, the Japanese economy contracted by 27.8% on an annualized basis (7.8% on a quarterly basis), a worse performance than had been anticipated.  Japan’s economy was already in a recession prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Central and East European Economies Suffer Severe Losses: While the scale of the declines in economic output were not as large as those of West European economies, the economies of Central and East Europe nevertheless suffered major declines in the second quarter as a result of the pandemic.

Trend to Watch

Scientists have speculated that the reason for Southeast Asia’s and southern China’s low rates of coronavirus cases (despite their proximity to the Wuhan epicenter) could be a result of previous exposure to viruses similar to Covid-19 for people in those regions.

The Coming Days

Russia is pushing ahead with its plans to quickly release a vaccine for the coronavirus that was developed in that country. However, this vaccine has been tested on just a handful of people, raising serious questions about this vaccine’s safety.