UK health minister ‘very sorry’ after pictured kissing aide
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was “very sorry” after pictures of him kissing and embracing his top aide, a friend hired last year, were splashed on the front page of the Sun newspaper.
Vietnam business hub Ho Chi Minh City to enact social distancing
Vietnam’s business hub Ho Chi Minh City will begin social distancing measures for 15 days starting from May 31 in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, the country’s government said on Sunday.
Queen Elizabeth to set out UK government’s post-pandemic agenda
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will present Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s post-pandemic agenda on Tuesday in a speech written by the government that will set out the new laws that ministers intend to pass in the coming year.
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.
