In New Zealand, new modelling from the Treasury has painted a dire picture of the country’s economic prospects for the next year, with a surge in unemployment to as much as 13% even if Covid-19 infections are contained and lockdown rules eased after the initial four weeks.
A jobless rate of up to 26% – and a fall in GDP of 23% – is predicted if the country is forced to remain in its strictest level of shutdown for a total of six months before moving to marginally lighter measures.
However, with a larger fiscal stimulus package than the NZ$20bn (£9.7bn) already pledged by the government, the 13% jobless rate modelled could hit a much lower peak of 8.5% before falling to 5.5% in the year to June 2021. On Tuesday, Robertson pledged to release further support.
All seven of the scenarios modelled – the first released since the pandemic reached New Zealand – predicted that unemployment would be higher in the June quarter of this year than the 6.7% reached during the 2008 global financial crisis. The current jobless rate is just over 4%.
How Greece is beating coronavirus despite a decade of debt
Every day at 6pm Greeks turn on their TV sets and tune into a broadcast that at other times they might have missed. Like most rituals, there are no surprises: two men, seated several meters apart, behind a long table in a brightly lit room.
The health ministry’s daily coronavirus briefing then begins with Sotiris Tsiodras, a soft-spoken Harvard-trained professor of infectious diseases, delivering the latest facts and figures with the occasional emotional plea. Nikos Hardalias, the civil defence minister, invariably follows, invoking the gravity of the situation with warnings that Greeks “must stay at home”.
The bookish professor and no-nonsense former mayor are the faces who have come to be associated with the government’s drive to contain the spread of Covid-19. Their efforts at keeping the country virus-safe appear to be paying off: in a population of just over 11 million, there were, as of Monday, 2,145 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 99 deaths, far lower than elsewhere in Europe. Italy to date has registered 20,465 deaths.
Greece, it is generally agreed, is having a better crisis than may have been expected:
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta are in open conflict over the countrys coronavirus response, leading many to worry that the far-right leader could soon fire the official who has played a major role in containing the outbreak, AP reports.
The public battle between a president notorious for his polarising remarks and the more measured doctor has reminded many of a similar tug of war taking place in the United States, between President Donald Trump and his chief virus expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
It has also raised concerns that efforts to prevent the spread of the virus in Latin America’s largest country could veer off track.
In a televised interview earlier this month, Bolsonaro said Mandetta had failed to show humility and that anyone can be fired. A few days later, Bolsonaro told a group of supporters that he would use his pen against officials in his government who are full of themselves.
Those comments were widely understood as signaling an end to Mandetta’s tenure, so much so that the minister said his subordinates cleaned out his desk.
But asked about the possibility of resigning recently, Mandetta said he learned from his teachers that a doctor never abandons his patient.
The novel coronavirus is 10 times more deadly than swine flu, which caused a global pandemic in 2009, the World Health Organization said Monday, stressing a vaccine would be necessary to fully halt transmission.
AFP reports that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from Geneva that the organisation was constantly learning about the new virus sweeping the globe, which has now killed nearly 115,000 people and infected over 1.9 million.
“We know that Covid-19 spreads fast, and we know that it is deadly, 10 times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic,” he said.
More than half of the planet’s population is currently staying home as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus, but Tedros warned that while COVID-19 had accelerated quickly, “it decelerates much more slowly.”
“In other words, the way down is much slower than the way up,” he said.
WHO said that “ultimately, the development and delivery of a safe and effective vaccine will be needed to fully interrupt transmission”.
A vaccine is thought to be at least 12 to 18 months away.
In Mexico, health workers briefly blocked a street in Mexico City on Monday to demand more protective gear as their hospital receives more patients suffering from Covid-19, AP reports.
Dozens of nurses, doctors and other personnel from the October 1 Hospital carried handwritten signs and shouted for assistance. The hospital is part of Mexico’s public health system for government workers.
One nurse, who had worked at the hospital for more than 20 years, but requested anonymity to avoid repercussions, said she received only one flimsy mask per day even though she works on a floor with dozens of patients with the new coronavirus.
At least one nurse has already died at the hospital and a doctor is in intensive care, she said. Calls to the hospital and the agency that runs it were not immediately answered.
Mexico’s Institute of Social Security acknowledged Monday there had been outbreaks among medical personnel in at least five hospitals across the country, with 535 medical workers infected and nine dead so far.
Mexico has seen a growing number of such protests in recent weeks as the epidemic spreads.
Mexico has reported just over 5,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 332 deaths.
Japan reports 390 new cases, South Korea 27
Japan’s health ministry has reported 390 new cases of infection for a domestic total of 7,645. The country was put under a state of emergency last week, but many people were still seen queuing up at grocery stores and crowding shopping arcades in parts of downtown Tokyo to stock up on necessities.
South Korea meanwhile has reported 27 fresh cases of the new coronavirus, the 13th day in a row of below 100, as infections continued to wane in the worst-hit city of Daegu and nearby towns.
Figures released by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday brought national totals to 10,564 infections and 222 virus-related deaths.
The KCDC says at least 940 of the cases were linked to passengers arriving from overseas, with most of the cases detected in the past three weeks.
A sweet story from our correspondent in New Zealand, where endangered plovers have been relocated from Christchurch to near Wellington, despite the lockdown:
