17 April 2020

ISA Coronavirus Update (17th of April)

Daily Summary

The number of new cases of the coronavirus (Covid-19) that have been diagnosed around the world rose significantly over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of known cases to 2.2 million.  Worse, the number of known fatalities in this pandemic also rose at a higher rate, surpassing 147,000.

The number of cases of the coronavirus in Europe surpassed the one million mark, following a surge of new cases in France.  In fact, France is about to overtake Italy in terms of the number of cases, and that country has one of the world’s higher fatality rates, due in part to a dangerous lack of ICUs and ventilators in France.  

China’s official death toll from the coronavirus was revised upwards by nearly 1,300 after there was an increase in the official death toll in Wuhan, with more deaths that took place outside of hospitals being included in the official death toll.  This came as an increasing number of world leaders criticized China’s handling of this crisis and its reporting of the impact of the crisis inside China.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Africa could become the next epicenter of this pandemic as the virus begins to spread outside of the region’s largest cities.  While there are less than 20,000 known cases of the coronavirus in the region, the actual number of likely many times higher.

 

Key Developments

China’s Economy Falls Sharply: The Chinese economy contracted by 6.8% on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter of this year, the first such decline for the Chinese economy since it began tracking quarterly data in 1992.  Meanwhile, retail sales in China declined by 15.9% last month.

22 Million Out of Work in the US: Last week, a further 5.2 million people in the United States filed for unemployment benefits, bringing the four-week total number of people who have so far lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic in the US to 22 million.

 

Trend to Watch

United States President Donald Trump unveiled a three-step plan for some US states to restart their economies and lift some of the lockdown measures that they put in place.  He claimed that 29 states will soon be in a position to start enacting these measures.

 

The Coming Days

We will release our updated GDP growth forecasts, unemployment forecasts, fiscal balance forecasts and other economic forecasts in the coming days.  All will show a major deterioration in the global economic outlook for 2020.