Record number of Chinese to travel over Labour Day break, but stick close to home
A record-breaking wave of Chinese tourists will hit the road for the Labour Day break, and with borders still shut many will be travelling domestically, to more remote locations and for longer, giving China’s economy a powerful short-term boost. The holiday will be China’s first long break in largely COVID-free conditions, and will unleash months […]
Vaccination centres close in Mumbai as India posts another record rise in COVID-19
All vaccination centres in India’s financial capital of Mumbai were shut for three days starting Friday due to a shortage of vaccines, said authorities, as the country posted another record daily rise in coronavirus cases. India reported 386,452 news cases on Friday, while deaths from COVID-19 jumped by 3,498 over the last 24 hours, according […]
Lockdown accounting
Many countries have implemented social distancing and lockdown policies to tame the spread of Covid-19. This column discusses the potential GDP and employment effects of lockdown policies for a broad cross-section of countries ranging in income per capita from Niger to Luxembourg. It shows that the employment and GDP effects of lockdown policies are U-shaped in income per capita. While workers in rich countries have a substantially higher ability to work from home, which mitigates declines in employment and GDP, poor countries concentrate employment and value-added in essential sectors that are not shut down. Middle-income countries see the largest declines as they feature relatively large employment shares in non-essential sectors and relatively low work from home ability.
France to relax nightly curfew on May 19, to scrap it on June 30 – source
The French government will begin relaxing its COVID-19 curfew from May 19, a source familiar with the plan said on Thursday ahead of an expected announcement by President Emmanuel Macron.
India’s coronavirus infections cross 18 million as gravediggers work round the clock
India’s total COVID-19 cases passed 18 million on Thursday after another world record number of daily infections, as gravediggers worked around the clock to bury victims and hundreds more were cremated in makeshift pyres in parks and parking lots. India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday, health ministry data showed,the highest […]
Moderna boosting COVID-19 vaccine capacity, targets up to 3 billion shots in 2022
Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) said on Thursday it is boosting manufacturing capacity for its COVID-19 vaccine and expects to make up to 3 billion doses in 2022, more than twice its previous forecast. It also said it is increasing its expectations for 2021 vaccine production to between 800 million and 1 billion shots, raising the bottom of its range from […]
London Heathrow Airport’s COVID losses balloon to $3.4 bln
Heathrow, Britain’s biggest airport, said on Thursday a first quarter loss of 329 million pounds ($459 million) took total losses since the start of the pandemic to nearly 2.4 billion pounds as travel continues to be hammered. It said only 1.7 million passengers travelled through the London airport in the three months to March 31, […]
Mexico agrees domestic production of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine
Mexico will produce Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 domestically, its foreign minister said on a visit to Moscow, in a TV interview shared on Wednesday on the official Sputnik V Twitter feed run by the fund marketing the vaccine.
From Amazon to Tata, industry steps up to combat India’s coronavirus crisis
Sachin Ravikumar, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Chris Thomas Global and Indian firms are flexing their industrial muscle to help the world’s second biggest population battle coronavirus, coming to the rescue of a public health system buckling under the weight of surging infections and deaths. Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Intel (INTC.O) and Google, as well as Indian firms Tata Sons, Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) and JSW […]
India’s coronavirus death toll surpasses 200,000 after record case surge
India’s COVID-19 death toll surged past 200,000 on Wednesday as shortages of oxygen, medical supplies and hospital staff compounded a record number of new cases of the virus.
