Today the total number of coronavirus cases reached 3.8 million worldwide. The situation has stabilized in Spain, Italy, the UK, and even the United States, which has the most Covid-19 patients (1.26 million). Overnight Russia overtook France and Germany and is now the fifth most affected country with 177,000 registered coronavirus cases.
This week many of the countries that seem to have recovered are preparing to further relax the quarantine measures. Though this is good news for the economy, which can restart once again, the WHO has warned that there may be a second wave of the pandemic this summer, which would further complicate the already dire situation.
After the European Commission gave a very grim projection about economic growth in the near future, today the UK also published data which suggests that the post-pandemic crisis will be the worst in our lifetimes, even worse than the aftermath of two World Wars or the Great Depression.
In terms of fundamentals, today we are looking forward to the publication of the initial jobless claims for the past week in the United States. The report is forecasted around 3 million; though this is still a big number, it is twice smaller than the 6+ million figures seen when Covid-19 first broke out in the US in March.
In addition, US President Donald Trump is still taunting China and disturbing the markets with talk of new tariffs as retaliation for the coronavirus pandemic. He is now calling the virus “an attack” and comparing it to terrorist acts of the past. The preliminary trade agreement that the United States and China signed early on in January might be annulled.
For anyone interested in the developing world, Turkey is becoming a subject to follow. The country’s financial crisis is getting worse again and the lira is crashing versus the USD. Turkey might be the next country to ask the IMF for a bailout, but it is not certain it would get it.
