The global count of Covid-19 cases is approaching 8.3 million today. Brazil has cemented its place as the second most seriously affected country after the United States, with close to 930,000 coronavirus patients. The pandemic is still rapidly developing in Central Asia, but the situation remains stable in most of Europe and North America.
Meanwhile, China appears to be on the verge of a second wave of the pandemic and has begun implementing new lockdown measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The new measures will see the closing down of schools and theaters, and there will be flight interruptions, but for now industrial activity will go on as planned.
There have been some signs that a similar scenario could play out in the United States, which is seeing new cases in states that have reopened their economies and have cancelled the lockdowns. Donald Trump’s administration is denying that a second wave of the pandemic will come.
Elsewhere in the world, there is talk of war. China and India have engaged in actual fighting in a small section of their shared border in the Himalayas, where there is a piece of land both countries lay claim to. The scale of the conflict is hard to predict at this point, but this issue is worth following.
North Korea too has started bumping up its military activities. Since Donald Trump now has more pressing issues to attend to than his previous vow to bring peace to the Korean peninsula, North Korea has once again stepped up its military exercises and has refused to hold peace talks with South Korea.
Furthermore, today Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will continue his scheduled testimony before Congress. Though he has warned that the economic recovery of the United States will be slow, there have been minor improvements in fundamentals recently. Moreover, the Fed’s stimulus program is boosting the stock markets.
