COVID-19 created an unprecedented challenge to waste management across the globe. As the number of patients needing hospital-based healthcare exploded, breaching the capacity of even developed economies, it caused similar challenges in waste management infrastructure too. Managing massive healthcare waste became a challenge for both developed and developing countries.
This has been a devastating year. More than 1.6 million people have died in the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 75 million cases and tens of trillions of dollars in economic damages. Millions of people are out of work and struggling to pay their bills, and more than a billion children are missing out on crucial time in school. In the U.S., this year also saw the horrifying killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, ruinous wildfires, and a presidential election unlike any other in modern times.
I think the most important area of progress has been the overall level of response on the continent. When COVID-19 hit, African governments and leaders moved very quickly to take lockdown measures that prevented what could have been a catastrophic situation of massive infections and overwhelmed health systems. Because nations acted swiftly, we did not reach that point. To date, Africa has seen around 56,000 deaths, which is of course tragic but is far, far less than anyone originally predicted.
This time last year, concepts such as “lockdowns,” “mask mandates” and “social distancing” were unknown to most of us. Today they are part of our everyday language as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact all aspects of our lives. Through the following 12 charts and graphics, we try to quantify and provide an overview of our colleagues’ research in the face of a truly unprecedented crisis.
Today, the Gates Foundation is making its largest single contribution to fight the pandemic—$250 million. Why so much? And why now? It’s been roughly a year since COVID-19 first appeared. The rationale has to do with where the public health effort is at the end of 2020.
At the time of writing, multiple new vaccines are reported to be effective in protecting against the COVID-19 infection. This heartening news signals an end to a long wait, but there is no time to be complacent: a range of policies need to be in place for the majority of the world’s population to access the vaccines.
The paper finds that while lockdown measures have strong effects on the transmission rate, gathering bans appear to be more effective than workplace and school closures. Ramping up testing and tracing is found to be especially effective in controlling the spread of the disease in economies with greater coverage of paid sick leave benefits. The findings suggest that a targeted approach can be taken to keep the epidemic controlled at lower economic cost.
COVID-19 vaccines should start becoming available in the Western world for the first time in a matter of days. So, who should be given early access? Officials far and wide have been delving into the delicate process of deciding who will receive the initial, limited batches of vaccines as they thread together the complex supply chains necessary to deliver them.
The Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) has begun a clinical study to test whether two available drugs in the market can treat Covid-19 patients with mild and moderate symptoms in Africa.
Goldman Sachs is using drone technology to conduct virtual tours of companies and close merger and acquisition deals during the coronavirus pandemic. “We have been selling asset-based businesses all over the world using drones for site visits and fly-overs,” Stephan Feldgoise told CNBC in an interview. ``It gives buyers the confidence they need because when you are buying a business, you want to see, touch and feel what you are buying. ”
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public health crisis. Because SARS-CoV-2 can spread from individuals with pre-symptomatic, symptomatic, and asymptomatic infections, the re-opening of societies and the control of virus spread will be facilitated by robust population screening, for which virus testing will often be central. After infection, individuals undergo a period of incubation during which viral titers are usually too low to detect, followed by an exponential viral growth, leading to a peak viral load and infectiousness, and ending with declining viral levels and clearance. Given the pattern of viral load kinetics, we model the effectiveness of repeated population screening considering test sensitivities, frequency, and sample-to-answer reporting time. These results demonstrate that effective screening depends largely on frequency of testing and the speed of reporting, and is only marginally improved by high test sensitivity. We therefore conclude that screening should prioritize accessibility, frequency, and sample-to-answer time; analytical limits of detection should be secondary.
Millions of people need a home office for the first time. Some have perched at kitchen tables or made do with a laptop on the sofa for months. But even if a vaccine comes soon, many people may never go back to the office full time. And the early signs of how the pandemic has affected the UK's mental health are not good.
It is very exciting to hear another positive story about vaccine trial results – a good vaccine is the most likely way of ending the pandemic. Last week, interim results from Pfizer suggested its vaccine reduces cases of COVID-19 with 90% efficacy. Now Moderna has gone one better, with interim results showing nearly 95% efficacy for its vaccine – with hints that it may protect against severe disease. Neither have reported any serious safety concerns and have tested their vaccines in tens of thousands of participants.
Like a lot of people, I have really gotten into listening to podcasts over the last year. They’re such an immersive way to learn about the world, and I like how the format lets you dive as deep on a topic as you want. So, I was inspired to start one of my own—but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. I couldn’t ask for a better partner on this project than Rashida Jones. A mutual friend suggested that the two of us might have a lot to talk about, and it turned out he was right. I already knew she was a talented actor, but I was impressed by her thoughtful perspective on the world. So, we decided to start a podcast that lets us think through some of today’s most pressing problems together. In our first episode, Rashida and I explore a big question that is top of mind for many people: what will the world look like after COVID-19?
This daily round-up brings you a selection of the latest news and updates on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, as well as tips and tools to help you stay informed and protected. Top stories: US confirmed cases pass 11 million; new cases in South Korea cause concern; Italian research suggests coronavirus was circulating much earlier than previously thought.
How do you convince a healthcare customer that your product can cover everything they need in order to capture and calculate daily Covid screenings for their entire staff? And not only that… to be able to visualize this data for their leadership? And then, in the end, to be able to share meaningful data with government agencies so they can get funding?
To give ourselves the best chance at meeting the SDGs, we must engage with those people at whom the goals are targeted. COVID-19 can be a lever for systemic change, if we can bring those at the grassroots level on board. To do so effectively, we will need to draw on the expertise of both social entrepreneurs and scientists.
The global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will depend on the world coming together in a collective endeavour backed by science, finance and political resolve, African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina, told the Victoria Forum 2020, a virtual event addressing the long-term socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. “How we come out of this pandemic, and the speed of our collective recovery, will depend on our shared collective global responsibility, to join hands to mobilize scientific and financial resources backed by strong political will,” Adesina said during the opening plenary.
"Anecdotally, we understand FDI is largely focused on tech start-ups and successful tech businesses, especially in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. Impact investment and sustainable finance into businesses in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also evident from international institutions and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs)."
“The decisions we make now will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond: Emissions must fall by half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions no later than 2050 to reach the 1.5C goal”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message to the virtual Finance in Common Summit.
The dramatic changes to the workforce brought about by organisational responses to COVID-19 are only likely to accelerate the shift to smart cities, say experts at UNSW Sydney. The coronavirus pandemic is permanently reshaping the nature of how work is done in a number of ways. Organisations have had to contend with large swathes of their employees working from home, and it looks like this seismic shift will be permanent in many ways.
There was – rightfully – a lot of excitement when Pfizer and BioNTech announced interim results from their COVID vaccine trial. The vaccine, called BNT162b2, was reported to have an “efficacy rate above 90%”. This was soon translated in the press to be 90% “effective” at preventing COVID-19. Efficacy, effectiveness – what’s the difference?
Lockdowns, working from home, and physical distancing caused people to spend larger shares of their household budgets on food and housing, while fewer people bought nonessentials, like airline tickets and clothing. And with incomes down as millions have lost their jobs, spending on nonessential items will likely remain depressed.
Despite warnings about the inadequacy of Senegal’s health care system, the country’s COVID-19 case numbers remain among the lowest per capita in the world, largely due to its fact-based and swift response. Following the country’s first COVID-19 case, Senegal enacted several public health policies to prevent community transmission and protect its fragile health system. Observers credit transparent and consistent public messaging for widespread support of essential measures, including mask mandates, that have kept the virus in check throughout many of the country’s urban areas.
Lockdowns, working from home, and physical distancing caused people to spend larger shares of their household budgets on food and housing, while fewer people bought nonessentials, like airline tickets and clothing. And with incomes down as millions have lost their jobs, spending on nonessential items will likely remain depressed.
How the US and the EU failed to control the virus, and how comparable countries succeeded. How you can make sense of all the necessary measures with one simple idea. Why the West’s testing and contact tracing is largely useless — and what they can do about it. The questions that journalists and the People must ask politicians to keep them accountable. How you can stop the virus in your own community, without the need of your government.
In particular, the pandemic is threatening hard-won progress in healthcare. A recent WHO survey, based on reports from 105 countries, found that 90 percent of countries experienced disruption to its health services this year between March and June. Such impact of disruption of healthcare can be devastating – as we saw during the West African Ebola outbreak – and in the case of the coronavirus, could become a bigger killer than the virus itself. Experts estimate that deaths from HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria could double in the next year, and vaccine coverage could drop to levels last seen in the 1990s.
Connecting traffic has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19. We believe the hub model will remain relevant postcrisis, but airlines will need to update their operations and network strategies. COVID-19 has drastically decreased airline traffic across all routes, but the volume of connecting passengers has been among the hardest hit. Questions have arisen as to whether the current crisis will lead to structural changes within the industry. On the network side, this includes a debate about when and if connecting traffic will return, and whether a rethink of the hub-and-spoke model may be necessary.
There are serious concerns that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic may hit even harder than the first. What should we do to limit further widening inequalities in employment and education occurring as we brace ourselves for England’s second national lockdown? Our research points to effective policies that could help limit further damages to inequality and social mobility. According to our recent survey data, they have widespread public support. The results come from the first LSE-CEP Social Mobility Survey of 10,010 individuals aged 16 to 65 contacted between 14 September and 12 October 2020, combined with analysis of the April 2020 Understanding Society COVID-19 Survey tracking just under 18,000 individuals across the UK.
WHO has been following closely the situation with Typhoon Goni in the Philippines. This is the strongest storm of 2020 and WHO will work with the government to ensure emergency medical care is reaching those that need it. I have been identified as a contact of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. I am well and without symptoms but will self quarantine in the coming days, in line with WHO protocols. Over the weekend we saw that while many countries have brought COVID-19 under control, cases in some countries in Europe and North America continue to spike. In some countries, we’re seeing cases go up exponentially and hospitals reach capacity, which poses a risk to patients and health workers alike. We need countries to again invest in the basics so that measures can be lifted safely and governments can hopefully avoid having to take these measures again.
TBILISI, Oct 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - COVID-19 will not spell the end of world cities, which are set to grow further over the next decade, the United Nations said on Saturday, urging civic leaders to use the pandemic as a springboard to build better, more liveable urban centres. About 60% of the global population is expected to live in cities by 2030, up from 56% today, despite the coronavirus pandemic pushing many to look for a new home outside congested urban centres, the U.N. said in a report.
To gain insights into how our people see Covid-19’s implications for the talent agenda, we embarked on a survey, predominantly across East Africa. We wanted their thoughts on impact from an organization and individual perspective as well as pointers on how organizations can better prepare and adapt. This survey focused Coping mechanisms through the pandemic and supporting employees; Essential work skills based on lessons from Covid-19; What leadership skills expect to see post Covid-19; Updates to learning and development plans so that we can better help staff cope with the new normal; Critical measures to include in our performance management framework based on lessons from the pandemic; and What the HR team needs to focus on going forward with respect to its service delivery.
Welcome to the IMF Weekend Read. I'm Rahim Kanani, based in Washington DC, and today's edition was produced by my colleague and Deputy Editor of the Weekend Read Adam Behsudi. In today's edition we hear how continued support will be critical for recovery in the United Kingdom, explore new analysis of the pandemic's effect on inequality in developing economies, hear more about the impact and opportunity of the crisis in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, how firms view sustainability amid a crisis, among many other highlights. On that note, let's dive right in.
From dining out at restaurants with her partner and relatives to attending book clubs with friends, Susan Kemp had an active social life before Covid-19. Since April, she’s only left her apartment near Stockholm five times, after experiencing a huge increase in social anxiety and germaphobia-based obsessive compulsive behaviours during the pandemic.
International climate talks are just more hot air. That is a common running narrative that lies beneath a decade of coverage, whether reporters criticize weak emissions targets, expect only a “spirit of cooperation,” or note failure to even agree on timelines. But this year, something is different. COVID-19 has led to the postponement of next month’s annual Conference of the Parties (COP) to November 2021. A year without a COP has people asking: What will the impact be on future climate action? How do we facilitate more climate discussion? Suddenly, we want more climate talks.
The sense of urgency created by the pandemic has aligned incentives to address both crisis and legacy policy issues. Navigating the reform space requires adopting timely political analysis. Working politically to balance short-term crises reform with longer term sustainable development is possible with a deep understanding of the context, strong networks of trusted national advisers and access to key stakeholders.
At first glance, you might expect COVID-19 to be a disaster for corporate culture. The widespread shift to remote work — half of employees in the U.S. were working from home in April — decreased the face-to-face interactions that reinforce organizational culture.1 The economic downturn in many industries and a spike in layoffs threaten to unravel the social fabric that holds companies together.
“Our goal with the vaccine tracker is to help the public find and access reliable information about COVID-19 vaccines, improve understanding about the vaccine testing process, and manage expectations about when a vaccine may be available,” says Basta, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health. According to the researchers, providing clear, consistent and unbiased information about progress towards making COVID-19 vaccines is critical to the success of a global effort to prevent and stop the spread of COVID-19.
The first week of business school was an introduction to a world of new concepts. Just as the foundational coursework was coming to an end, we took on a daylong deep dive into case studies examining ways of ensuring corporate wellbeing. As a physician leading the wellbeing program for the largest health care provider in the Mid-Atlantic region, this was a pleasant departure into familiar territory.
This daily round-up brings you a selection of the latest news and updates on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, as well as tips and tools to help you stay informed and protected. Top stories: Europe reports 200,000 new cases in a day; Eurozone economic recovery at risk; permanent work from home set to double next year.
The public and private sector, civil society, and academic institutions have developed many innovative solutions to manage health aspects of the COVID-19 crisis. Innovators have focused on tools for surveillance, supply chain management, clinical trials, diagnosis, communication, and developing vaccines. These have been supplemented by research collaboration platforms, isolation and hospital upgrading novelties, as well as risk stratification resources. The paper presents many of these solutions with the aim of supporting evidence-based health responses and proposes that a “living platform” for sharing public health innovations is developed.
We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere. The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track. We urge leaders to take immediate action, to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again. Oxygen is one of the most essential medicines for saving patients with COVID-19, and many other conditions. WHO is committed to working in solidarity with all governments, partners and the private sector to scale up sustainable oxygen supply. Tomorrow marks World Polio Day week, and partners around the world – led in particular by Rotary International – are organising events and raising awareness about the need to eradicate polio. We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere. The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track. We urge leaders to take immediate action, to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again. Oxygen is one of the most essential medicines for saving patients with COVID-19, and many other conditions. WHO is committed to working in solidarity with all governments, partners and the private sector to scale up sustainable oxygen supply. Tomorrow marks World Polio Day week, and partners around the world – led in particular by Rotary International – are organising events and raising awareness about the need to eradicate polio.
Health officials in Africa say the rollout of rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19 could be a "game changer" for their fight against the coronavirus but also warned Thursday that increased testing could drive up confirmed cases on a continent that has seen them decline or plateauing as case numbers soar in the West.
While metal and agricultural commodities have recouped their losses from the COVID-19 pandemic and are expected to make modest gains in 2021, energy prices, despite some recovery, are expected to stabilize below pre-pandemic levels next year, the World Bank said. Oil prices fell dramatically in the early stages of COVID-19 and have only partially regained pre-pandemic price levels, while metal prices declined relatively modestly and have returned to levels that preceded the shock, according to the semi-annual Commodity Markets Outlook report. Agriculture prices were relatively unaffected by the pandemic, but the number of people at risk of food insecurity has risen as a result of the broader effects of the global recession.
The simultaneous disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis in nearly every country around the world has forced societies into a moment of pause and reflection on what is truly of value. Rebuilding the post-pandemic economy in this spirit will require a more comprehensive definition of economic success to serve as a guide for the economic recovery. Under the umbrella of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset initiative, this paper outlines a general framework for macroeconomic targets beyond GDP growth – a Dashboard for a New Economy – to serve as a guide for the post-COVID-19 economic recovery and as a starting point for further debate and convergence of targets and approaches among governments and economic policy-makers globally. Building on findings from the World Economic Forum’s regular Chief Economists Survey, the report demonstrates the practical relevance of the framework by assessing the current state of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and policy action based on the proposed dimensions of the Dashboard.
How should policies to control the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic differ across countries? We extend recent contributions integrating economic and epidemiological models for the United States to a developing country context, Uganda. Differences in demography, comorbidities, and health systems affect mortality risk; lower incomes affect agents’ willingness to forego consumption to reduce disease risk. For a broad range of life valuations supported by the literature, optimal containment is significantly less restrictive in the latter context, a normative implication contradicted by positive findings of similarly strict lockdowns across rich and poor countries. We explore biased beliefs about infection risk as a possible explanation.
At the meeting of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on 15-16 October 2020, WTO members discussed how best to use the global intellectual property (IP) system to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Members also discussed the extension of the transitional period for least developed countries (LDCs) to implement the TRIPS Agreement and a submission on the competitiveness of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through the protection of IP rights.
Sub-Saharan Africa is contending with an unprecedented health and economic crisis— one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized years of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions. The current outlook for 2020–21 is broadly unchanged from the June update, with activity in 2020 projected to contract by 3.0 percent, still the worst outcome on record. For 2021, regional growth should recover modestly to 3.1 percent. This outlook is subject to some key downside risks, particularly regarding the path of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resilience of the region’s health systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted the social and economic realities of our communities, but also undermined some of the basic infrastructure we depend on. Our water infrastructure has been at the heart of this realization; its importance to health, hygiene, and safety has never been more obvious, yet millions of disadvantaged and vulnerable households still lack reliable and affordable access to water. Meanwhile, climate change has fueled extreme droughts, fires, and floods that have disrupted or destroyed this essential infrastructure. COVID-19 has exposed the continued neglect of our water infrastructure, magnifying long-standing social and environmental stressors as well as economic inequities.
The Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its global reach and impact, posing formidable challenges to policymakers and to the empirical analysis of its direct and indirect effects within the interconnected global economy. This column uses a ‘threshold-augmented multi-country econometric model’ to help quantify the impact of the Covid-19 shock along several dimensions. The results of the analysis show that the global recession will be long lasting, with no country escaping its impact regardless of their mitigation strategy. These findings call for a coordinated multi-country policy response to the pandemic.
As organizations recover from COVID-19, there are changes underway that may become permanent. Some traditional ways of doing business have changed, and some of these changes may be more effective than the “old approach.” It is important to learn from the pandemic and embrace new ways of thinking. Here are five common lessons that many organizations have learned during COVID-19 recovery.
Rapid research into the effects of COVID-19 on young people in Tanzania reveals high levels of anxiety about the virus as it relates to relationships, economic livelihoods and the community. The research, led by Dr Elizabeth Ngutuku, draws further attention to the need for governments to consider the disease’s wider social and psychological impacts.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. Covid-19 has left many patients with debilitating, varied symptoms months after the initial infection has cleared, raising fears about the long-term health costs of the pandemic. Patients infected in the first wave of the virus have continued to suffer disorders in the brain, lungs, heart, gut, liver, skin and other parts of the body, according to a new review of the disease conducted by the UK National Institute for Health Research.
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved an envelope of $12 billion for developing countries to finance the purchase and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments for their citizens.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938 The human cost of coronavirus has continued to mount, with more than 38.8m cases confirmed globally and more than 1.08m people known to have died. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic in March and it has spread to more than 200 countries, with severe public health and economic consequences. This page provides an up-to-date visual narrative of the spread of Covid-19, so please check back regularly because we are refreshing it with new graphics and features as the story evolves.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of the African citizenry, continues to be a matter of great concern on the continent. As the world contends with the “new normal” and continues to navigate through the destruction caused by the pandemic, Africa remains optimistic that the proactive initiatives undertaken since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, have been effective in containing the spread of the virus and will enable the continent realize a gradual recovery of the socio-economic gains negatively affected by the pandemic.
Around the world, we’re now seeing an increase in the number of reported cases of COVID-19, especially in Europe and the Americas. There has been some discussion recently about the concept of reaching so-called “herd immunity” by letting the virus spread. Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. WHO is hopeful that countries will use targeted interventions where and when needed, based on the local situation. We well understand the frustration that many people, communities and governments are feeling as the pandemic drags on, and as cases rise again. There are no shortcuts, and no silver bullets. The answer is a comprehensive approach, using every tool in the toolbox.
Scaling up access to Covid-19 testing is one of the most serious challenges that the global healthcare supply chain has ever faced. And it is not going away anytime soon. Testing shortages in many countries were a major contributing factor to the botched early response to the pandemic. Without an effective vaccine, proactive and robust testing is the one of the most effective measures for stamping out burgeoning clusters before infection becomes widespread. According to most predictions, however, the need for testing is likely to remain high for a long time even after a successful vaccine becomes available. As we head into the winter season in the northern hemisphere, the demand for COVID-19 tests is likely to increase even further. Flu and other respiratory illnesses common in winter produce symptoms similar to Covid and many such suspected cases will also have to be tested.
The coronavirus is infecting the community of girls I serve in ways that go far beyond the symptoms of the virus that we’ve all heard so much about. The lives of girls in rural Kenya, where I am from, have long been plagued by poverty, gender-based violence, child marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM). My community based nonprofit organization, Kakenya’s Dream, offers boarding schools and other programs to help girls overcome these conditions so they can get the education they deserve. But with schools closed throughout Kenya to slow the spread of COVID-19, the girls in our programs now face greater risks — and new challenges.
In spring 2020, the unprecedented demand for many products has strained supply chains worldwide as production lines stopped working to avoid the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. It became virtually impossible to find frontline protective products against the virus: gloves, face masks and bottles of hand sanitizer. This situation prompted Chad to launch its first ever production of these precious flasks.
WHO officials are holding a question-and-answer session on Wednesday to update the public on the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 35.8 million people across the globe. The briefing comes as new cases continue to rise across much of the Northern hemisphere, especially in Europe, where WHO officials said "Covid-19 fatigue" is wearing down the public. WHO officials also said earlier this week that its "best estimates" indicate that roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus.
In 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order allocating US$ 10 million for emergency conservation efforts under the New Deal, putting unemployed Americans to work. When South Korea was struggling with famine and a refugee crisis in the 1950s, the government restored forests and farmland, creating hundreds of thousands of rural jobs.
Most patients hospitalized with Covid-19 have neurological symptoms, a new study suggests. The study "highlights the high frequency and range of neurologic manifestations, which occurred in more than four fifths of Covid‐19 patients hospitalized in our hospital network system," the researchers wrote in the study, published in the journal Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology on Monday.
How do we tell employees to return to the office when most have adapted fully to remote working? This is a fundamental question on most employers’ minds. The past four months have introduced the work world to new possibilities.
When her Danish colleagues first suggested distributing protective cloth face masks to people in Guinea-Bissau to stem the spread of the coronavirus, Christine Benn wasn’t so sure. “I said, ‘Yeah, that might be good, but there’s limited data on whether face masks are actually effective,’” says Benn, a global-health researcher at the University of Southern Denmark in Copenhagen, who for decades has co-led public-health campaigns in the West African country, one of the world’s poorest.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted or halted critical mental health services in 93% of countries worldwide while the demand for mental health is increasing, according to a new WHO survey. The survey of 130 countries provides the first global data showing the devastating impact of COVID-19 on access to mental health services and underscores the urgent need for increased funding.
Scientists in Nigeria have developed a cheaper and faster Covid-19 test kit that will enable testing to be ramped up in a place that has faced kit shortages and chronic under-testing of a massive population, according to the country's health authorities. The new test is cheaper than other PCR tests -- the most common type of test -- and can give results in less than 40 minutes, the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) said.
Burkina Faso was already facing a complex humanitarian and security crisis for the five years at least when COVID-19 arrived in the country, with the first case notified on March 9, 2020. Growing violence and insecurity due to mounting insurgent armed groups have affected 2,2 million people and the displacement of over one million civilians. As populations have fled conflict-affected areas, the demand for health services has continued to grow while attacks have decreased the number of functioning health facilities.
Ethiopian Airlines has introduced a medical cover for Covid-19 in its bid to boost passengers’ confidence. The airline, the largest in Africa, said the insurance scheme, dubbed Sheba Comfort, is part of the carrier’s “extra security measure to protect passengers and ensure that they travel with peace of mind.”
In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), more than 80 percent of workers find their livelihoods in the informal sector. They are artisans and shop owners, fishers and divers, tailors and weavers, truck drivers and market sellers, among many other informal jobs. In the era of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, saving lives and protecting livelihoods are both deeply challenging in SSA countries with high informality and almost no social protection.
Recognizing that the continued deterioration and degradation of the world’s natural ecosystems were having major impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people everywhere, world leaders called for increased resolve to protect biodiversity at the UN today.
The African Development Bank was selected in a poll of bond market players as the best issuer in 2020 of a COVID-19 bond for its $3 billion dollar-denominated Fight COVID-19 social bond issued on March 27, 2020. The winners of the GlobalCapital Bond Awards 2020 were announced on 30 September at a ceremony held virtually for the first time in 12 years. GlobalCapital is a leading source of information on global capital markets with coverage of all market segments.
To bring COVID-19 under control a vaccine needs to be available to every nation, rich and poor – and it needs to happen quickly. But pharmaceutical breakthroughs are usually the result a slow process involving competition, secrecy, risky investments and extensive trials.
Six months after WHO declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic,1 the responses to our latest McKinsey Global Survey suggest a positive shift in economic sentiment.2 More than half of all executives surveyed say economic conditions in their own countries will be better six months from now, while another 30 percent say they will worsen: it’s the smallest share of respondents all year to expect declining conditions.
In 2019, private investment commitments to public-private partnership (PPP) projects within low and middle-income countries amounted to $97 billion across 409 projects in 62 countries. Africa’s share of these private investment commitments—approximately $7 billion—represented a small portion of the total. The World Bank’s data for the first half of 2020 is expected to be released shortly, but early indications from the research team point to an even more precipitous decline.
Data has played a major role in governments’ efforts to combat the effects of COVID-19. Several key lessons have emerged that can shape governments’ data strategy even beyond the pandemic.
The World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit featured two sessions updating on progress of vaccine development and distribution. Leaders from pharmaceutical companies and bodies involved in the COVAX Facility – to ensure equitable distribution – discussed issues from vaccine nationalism to public trust.
Last week WHO issued the first Emergency Use Listing for a quality antigen based rapid diagnostic test and we expect other rapid tests to follow. Thanks to an agreement between WHO, partners here today and others, a substantial proportion of these rapid tests – 120 million – will be made available to low- and middle-income countries. These tests provide reliable results in approximately 15 to 30 minutes, rather than hours or days at a lower price with less sophisticated equipment. This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.
Seven months after the coronavirus pandemic first hit the U.S., even self-proclaimed Luddites have migrated much of their day-to-day life online. Managers who never planned to run meetings remotely have mastered the art of looking professional from the waist up on Zoom. Tenured college professors have learned how to conduct classes virtually. Busy parents have traded strolling the grocery aisles for scrolling through Amazon Fresh.
AS WE WRITE, COVID-19 has killed more than 850,000 people. It has plunged the world into a recession that is likely to get worse. And many countries are bracing for another surge in cases. In past editions of the Goalkeepers Report—almost every time we have opened our mouths or put pen to paper, in fact—we have celebrated decades of historic progress in fighting poverty and disease.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, executives are finding their companies’ digital transformation more urgent than ever. In late spring 2020, we surveyed senior executives, digital transformation leaders, and BCG experts about the leading trends in digital transformation and how these trends have been affected by the pandemic. (See the sidebar, “Our Research.”) While digital transformations have been a priority in recent years, over 80% of our respondents across industries now say they plan to accelerate their efforts.
The Foundation carried out its first Now Generation Network (NGN) Survey from 12-25 June. Participants further unpack the findings from the Survey in relation to the impact of COVID-19 in Africa and the continent’s prospects. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
After a focus on the power sector in the first chapter of this series which looks at the impact of Covid-19 across the African continent, we now turn to the digital sector. Whether as a tool to fight the spread of the virus, or as a means to ensure continuity in business, education, and everyday life in the midst of lockdown, information and communication technologies have been at the forefront worldwide since the beginning of the crisis. The African continent is no exception, but still suffers an important "digital divide", with only 28% of the population using the Internet, according to a 2019 report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Easter Kumbana had heard about the dangers of the coronavirus, but he could not afford the basic items needed to protect himself and his family from the disease. Luckily, he was able to benefit from an outreach program in Zambia that distributed thousands of face masks and hand sanitizer to vulnerable communities. The program also spread the message about the outbreak through a communications campaign that included radio advertisements and posters promoting social distancing.
Statement prepared for delivery at the 2020 Kapuchinski Development Lecture organized by the Earth Institute of Columbia University in cooperation with the Global Masters for Development Practice and the UN Sustainable Development Network.
Overall, this crisis could push millions of people into extreme poverty and food insecurity, while millions of existing poor experience even deeper deprivation. Based upon initial World Bank baseline projections, 73 million more people could be living in extreme poverty in 2020 than was forecast before the crisis.
I would like to provide another update on some of the work underway at the World Bank Group to address the COVID-19 pandemic and other significant development challenges.
As infections with Covid-19 appear to be intensifying in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), fears of severe food shortages have prompted experts to warn that the region may be “on the brink of a hunger pandemic.” Efforts are intensifying to rally a major global response.
Plug-and-play automation systems can be rapidly set up to meet sudden surges in demand — and quickly reconfigured when needs change.
Nigeria has been hit hard by both the spread of the virus and the decline in oil prices—a sector on which the economy is heavily reliant. The government has thus been laden with the challenging task of managing a health crisis in an already weakened economy. To monitor the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), with support from the World Bank, is conducting the Nigerian COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (COVID-19 NLPS).
This report presents an update to the Human Capital Index (HCI), using the most recent health and education data available as of 2020. It documents new evidence on trends over time in the HCI, examples of success, and new analytical work on utilization of human capital, as well as a primer on the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and its potential impact on human capital. COVID-19 is taking a tremendous toll on lives and economies. Disruptions in supply chains and the lockdowns that have been enacted to stave off contagion are putting hardship on families’ incomes. Coupled with disruptions in basic health services and school closures, these repercussions of COVID shocks are likely to have a significant impact on the human capital accumulation process in the short and in the long run. HCI 2020 data have been collected before the onset of COVID-19 and can act as a baseline to track the effects of COVID-19 on health and education outcomes, as policymakers consider how best to protect human capital from the shock of the pandemic.
Sub-Saharan Africa has long been one of the financial inclusion sector’s top success stories. But according to David Ferrand, despite strong gains in inclusion across the region, the overall impact of that newfound financial access has been disappointing. Even before COVID-19, there were few signs at the macro level that the continent’s financial sector was set to drive the level of investment needed to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic transformation.
As the COVID-19 crisis began to impact the work of changemakers around the world, I felt it was important to create a community where people responsible for social change could get ideas and inspiration in the face of an unprecedented level of uncertainty about the future. This became “Change for Good”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a big impact on the mining industry. The sector has responded swiftly and collaboratively. From health and safety to building better relationships with local communities, here's how the sector is building back better.
This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He was young—in his late 30s—and adored his wife and small children. And he had been healthy, logging endless hours running his own small business, except for one thing: He had severe obesity. Now, he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was increasingly short of breath.
Once effective coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are developed, they will be scarce. This presents the question of how to distribute them fairly across countries. Vaccine allocation among countries raises complex and controversial issues involving public opinion, diplomacy, economics, public health, and other considerations.
Climate change has not stopped for COVID19. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are at record levels and continue to increase. Emissions are heading in the direction of pre-pandemic levels following a temporary decline caused by the lockdown and economic slowdown. The world is set to see its warmest five years on record – in a trend which is likely to continue - and is not on track to meet agreed targets to keep global temperature increase well below 2 °C or at 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
When I was a kid, my image of a hero was largely inspired by my dad’s collection of early Superman comics. I read them all. A “hero” was somebody who had supernatural powers like flying, laser vision, or the strength to bend steel.
In parts of the world where COVID-19 has not yet spread widely, governments have a critical opportunity to step up prevention and response capacities. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is taking the threat of the pandemic seriously with an all-of-government approach in strengthening the country’s health system and engaging communities to keep them safe from the virus.
Deloitte says companies need to rethink their strategies as they move towards the ‘recovery’ phase of COVID-19. The five actions it recommends are: Reflect, Recommit, Re-engage, Rethink and Reboot. Staff should be at the heart of these changes and their needs and voices valued. The World Economic Forum is calling on leaders to adopt new sustainable approaches to business.
In late July, volunteers began receiving doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine in the latest stage of a clinical trial at NYU Langone Health in New York City. The more than 1,000 names on the waiting list suggest the local response to the trial “has been outstanding,” says Mark Mulligan, an infectious disease specialist who directs NYU Langone’s Vaccine Center. “People are fed up with this disease and very motivated to help.”
Science has been central to informing policy in the response to COVID-19. But ensuring the successful implementation of these policies and the direction of a long-term recovery is the role of the social sciences. Dr Rachel Middlemass outlines the specific contributions that social sciences have to play in informing how we rebuild post-pandemic and the 4 priorities for researchers in ensuring that this role is realized.
Nine CEPI-supported candidate vaccines are part of the COVAX initiative, with a further nine candidates under evaluation, and procurement conversations on-going with additional producers not currently receiving research and development (R&D) funding through COVAX – giving COVAX the largest and most diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio in the world. 80 potentially self-financing countries have submitted non-binding expressions of interest to the Gavi-coordinated COVAX Facility, joining 92 low- and middle-income economies that are eligible to be supported by the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Goal of bringing the pandemic under control via equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines needs urgent, broadscale commitment and investment from countries.
In reaction to the global COVID-19 pandemic, attention has focused on the potential role of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to further regulate—or ban—various form of the wildlife trade. Banning the wild animal trade, particularly for human consumption, means stopping the movement of some zoonotic diseases—infections that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
After demonstrating its resilience during the Ebola outbreak and the global financial crisis, Africa is once again facing a severe test of its strength and agility because of the coronavirus pandemic. The good news is that the continent has entered this crisis in reasonably good shape following decades of progression in health, education and economic outcomes.
In this final article in our series, we look at competition law considerations that parties should keep in mind as they navigate the current economic and regulatory environment. As entities seek to recover from the slump of the last few months, some may be tempted to pool resources and information to benefit from potential synergies.
Many developing countries face huge debts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Market analysts now suggest that almost 40% of emerging- and frontier-market sovereign external debt could be at risk of default in the next year. An IMF endorsed 'debt for nature swaps' initiative could help countries tackle debt and improve sustainability together.
The University of Oxford has published the results of its clinical trial of 'ChAdOx1 nCoV-19'. Initial results are promising, with both antibody and T cell responses. Falling infection rates in the UK might make it harder to assess the vaccine's effectiveness, but a second trial has been launched with approximately 10,000 UK individuals, mainly health workers, with further trials in Brazil and South Africa.
In our previous four articles in this series (see Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV) we explored how parties may rely on various common law doctrines or contractual provisions as defences to non-performance or delayed performance resulting from the impact of COVID-19, as well as how to mitigate damages and renegotiate contracts to avoid disputes amidst the pandemic.
COVID-19 forced airlines to remain grounded during lockdown. A survey of life sciences companies has found business travel is necessary for training and will pick up again post-pandemic. Some have planned their first face-to-face global gatherings for October 2020, based within their home region.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on businesses and employees in consumer industries. Business leaders in this sector and beyond must rethink the purpose of work, as well as how and where work gets done in a post-pandemic world. With employees embracing remote working, how to best manage and engage an increasingly distributed workforce is of critical importance.
New landmark collaboration between the Serum Institute of India (SII), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate manufacturing and delivery of up to 100 million doses of future safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries in 2021. Vaccines will be priced at maximum US$ 3 per dose and made available to up to 92 countries included in Gavi’s COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Dr Seth Berkley: New collaboration will help “ensure we have additional manufacturing capacity to begin producing doses for every country, not just the wealthy few”.
The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emerging market economies far exceeded that of the global financial crisis. Unlike previous crises, the response has been decisive just like in advanced economies. Yet, conventional policies are reaching their limit and unorthodox policies are not without risks.
They have been observed, scrutinized, and then applauded. Women leaders around the world have had considerably more success in slowing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and its general outcomes, and two economists based in the United Kingdom can now explain why.
Tanzania has rejected a one-size-fits-all model to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and imposing an extensive lockdown as elsewhere in the region. The government’s public health messaging to the population is therefore crucially important. What then has been the effect of public health announcements on citizens’ behaviour, and does this pose a problem for containment or a second wave?
As the pandemic wears on, mental health challenges mount up. Digital tools can help us identify stress as a first step before seeking help. Training community health workers and doctors to detect and treat mental health issues offers a scalable model.
The Emergency Committee on COVID-19, convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR), held its fourth meeting on 31 July. In its statement following the meeting, published today, it expressed “appreciation for WHO and partners’ COVID-19 pandemic response efforts, and highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts.”
A global Marshall Plan to improve planetary health could safeguard the future of fast-growing cities, writes Tolullah Oni, a public health physician and urban epidemiologist. She argues that reimagining urban planning decisions would reduce vulnerability to disease and improve health.
COVID-19 showed the limits of globalized manufacturing processes to meet people's needs. Localized production could allow for greater resilience and opportunity as the globe struggles with the coronavirus. An unsung factor enabling globalization was a very simple and practical thing - the invention of the shipping container.
As it entered the third decade of the 21st century, little did the world expect to find itself trapped in an Orwellian reality, where disruption is the norm, chaos dominates order, and the individual’s primary motive is pursuit of some semblance of normalcy. For decades, epidemiologists and virologists have warned of the potential of pathogens in causing infectious diseases that wreak inevitable havoc. This was not some form of prescience, but a caution backed by extensive research. The world today is not unacquainted with health crises, having faced widespread outbreaks of Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS, and influenza, among others; yet none of them had affected the world to this scale.
This paper uses Kenyan trade data published up through May 2020 to provide a preliminary evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on regional trade in the East African Community (EAC). Paradoxically, given the prevailing pessimism surrounding the prospects for global trade, Kenya actually experienced a significant improvement in exports in the first quarter of the year, together with a moderation of imports, leading to a marked decline in the trade deficit. While the initial shock to Kenyan trade caused by the COVID-19 crisis initially looked dramatic in terms of the declines registered, this paper reveals that i) the shock is not so alarming when seasonality is taken into account; ii) re-exports and imports have been the primary foci of impact; and iii) domestic exports have actually performed extraordinarily well under the circumstances, with incremental growth since 2019.
At the halfway point of an historically challenging year, private equity firms are getting back to business. First-half deal count dropped 36% in the Americas and 34% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), compared with the first six months of 2019 (see Figure 1). Yet after an initial shock-and-awe period related to the Covid-19 pandemic, general partners (GPs) are clearly back in the market seeking out opportunities to buy assets at the cycle’s nadir.
How many women have died of Covid-19? How many women have lost their jobs in the economic crisis it created? And how many have had to stop working because schools and day cares have closed and now have to take on unforeseen and added child care responsibilities? I don’t know the full answer to any of these questions. No one does. When it comes to the pandemic and its effect on women, too often we just don’t have the numbers.
To build a better world, every action counts. When it comes to ending the COVID-19 pandemic, those actions must include a broad global commitment to ensuring that all people – including refugees – are protected.
In the global race to contain the coronavirus pandemic, there is hopeful news on the vaccine front, with a number of potential candidates being developed and some promising early results. Based on what we know so far, it currently seems likely that most potential vaccines designed to protect against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 will require boosters, perhaps regularly. Why is this?
The first two COVID-19 cases in Ghana were confirmed on March 12, 2020. As of July 23, 2020, there have been 32,969 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 168 deaths. The virus has disproportionately affected southern Ghana—52 percent of cases are in Greater Accra (Table 1). With a population of about 30 million—the 10th largest in sub-Saharan Africa—Ghana now has the fourth highest number of cases in sub-Saharan Africa (after South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria). The reason is that Ghana has one of the highest testing rates when compared to other African countries.
A crucial role of any board is risk management. This responsibility includes setting the appropriate risk level, monitoring management’s actions against that benchmark, scanning the horizon for potential problems and helping management deal with potentially value-destroying events when they occur.
The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the African fashion industry on its head. Designer production is halted, fashion shows and events are postponed or moved online, and brands have had to scramble to set up proper online businesses to make up for sales lost to store closures. As the global fashion industry grapples with the effects of the pandemic, Africa’s network of designers is particularly vulnerable to disruption.
Measures of economic uncertainty derived from statistical models are not well suited to quickly capture shifts associated with sudden, surprise developments like the COVID-19 crisis, thus necessitating forward-looking measures. This column considers several such forward-looking indicators of economic uncertainty for the US and UK before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. All indicators show huge jumps in uncertainty in reaction to the pandemic and its economic fallout. Most indicators reach their highest values on record, but the extent of increases and time paths differ.
Much of the discussion around society’s ability to return to “normality” after the COVID-19 pandemic has centered on the development of a vaccine. This has led to unprecedented collaboration and investment. Vaccine candidate development for COVID-19 is progressing faster than for any other pathogen in history. Governments, pharma, and foundations are all pouring hundreds of billions into the science, which has hastened discovery and development.
Areas that eased their initial COVID-19 lockdowns and now have surging infection rates are a testament to all that has gone wrong in the pandemic. The lesson from day one still holds: until the virus is defeated, there can be no return to normal.
Elizabeth Mwanza, is one of many Zambians who does not have running water at home and relies on commercial kiosks, which leaves Mwanza concerned about gathering water during the pandemic. Limited hours have caused the kiosks to become congested at times when water is available, making social distancing almost impossible. That she might not be able to collect water safely worries Mwanza, because the government is advising residents to wash their hands as a preventive measure against the coronavirus. For Mwanza, that requires more water than usual.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF) on Wednesday approved a UA100.4 million (about $138 million) crisis budget support package to four southern African countries – Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and São Tomé & Príncipe, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funds from the African Development Bank’s ongoing Science and Technology Development Project have been committed towards two research projects to mitigate the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Angola. The Science and Technology Development Project which is being executed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, aims to contribute to Angola’s economic diversification through scientific and technological research, and by promoting an innovative enabling environment. The Angolan Government intends to promote research and enhance capacity in the health sector, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of us have been living with closed schools and some version of lockdown for four months now. For all the reimagining of education in the 21st century, nobody predicted that the greatest disruption of all would come from a virus. As education policymakers all over the world grapple with distance learning provision and safe school reopening, they will no doubt also be thinking about what the pandemic means for education in the longer term. We examine six ways COVID-19 is likely to shape the future of education.
COVID-19 restrictions have caused an unemployment boom in the country that’s rivaled only by the Great Depression nearly a century ago. People from all demographics and age groups are losing their jobs, with some being more affected by the pandemic than others. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows how young, uneducated workers have been devastated by the virus.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a loan of approximately R5 billion ($288 million) to the government of South Africa, as the country battles one of the largest COVID-19 caseloads in the world. South Africa confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on 5 March 2020 and is currently the most affected in Africa, and among the top five in the world in terms of confirmed cases (381,798 as at 22 July, with 5,368 deaths).
Launching today, the COVID-19 Law Lab initiative gathers and shares legal documents from over 190 countries across the world to help states establish and implement strong legal frameworks to manage the pandemic. The goal is to ensure that laws protect the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities and that they adhere to international human rights standards.
The “hard lockdown” was imposed by the government at the end of March but, since then, some restrictions have been lifted. However, the ban on the sale and transportation of cigarettes remains. This is after the industry lost a court challenge, the court agreeing with the government that the decision was “rational” because smokers are at high-risk of succumbing to the virus.
As the world grapples with measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 and minimise fatalities, Kenya is on the verge of a new challenge. Due to measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, Kenya may face a dramatic increase in population that will have far-reaching and long-term effects.
Research shows industry leaders make bold moves during a recession, widening the performance gap with peers. The exact timing and duration of a recession matters less than being ready to seize the moment. Top boards pressure test the portfolio against changing market conditions and prepare for future scenarios.
Within days of his inauguration in June, Evariste Ndayishimiye, Burundi’s president, ended months of official denial about coronavirus by ordering mass testing in the commercial capital of Bujumbura.
A team of scientists at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group has taken the next step towards the discovery of a safe, effective and accessible vaccine against coronavirus.
A new tool to ease national reporting on freshwater ecosystems will allow governments – despite limited movement in many countries due to COVID-19 – to continue to meet their national environmental reporting obligations and stay on track to preserve and restore a healthy environment. Developed in April 2020 for the SDG6 global data drive by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with Google and the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC), the Freshwater Ecosystems Explorer is a free and easy-to-use data platform providing up-to-date, high-resolution geospatial data showing the extent to which freshwater ecosystems change over time. The site contains unique, first-of-a-kind water datasets through which users can visualize dynamic changes to permanent and seasonal surface water; reservoirs; lake water quality; wetlands and mangroves.
The way that governments communicate can shape people’s responses. Psychological and behavioural research reveals that the same objective information can elicit different responses when presented in different ways, an effect called ‘framing’. For example, one study compared describing blood donations as a way to ‘prevent a death’ or ‘save a life’. While preventing death and saving life are two sides of the same coin, ‘prevent a death’ triggered more donations. These results are explained, at least in part, by a prevalent loss-aversion bias. As Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky explain: losses loom larger than gains.
COVID-19's impact on markets has differed widely across countries. Debate over what shape an economic recovery could continues. A realistic recovery scenario will likely take the shape of a 'kinked V'.
WHO briefing on 16 July at 13:00 hours.
It began as a mysterious disease, a novel coronavirus soon designated SARS-CoV-2. As countries shut down their economies to slow its spread, it became a global recession as well. Then, in April, the United Nations warned of another dimension to the emergency—a “shadow pandemic” of violence against women raging behind closed doors.
The COVID-19 crisis has taught us that robust and credible monitoring and evaluation systems are vital to ensure development projects and programs improve the lives of people most in need.
American consumers are crowding back into stores, restaurants and other places of business as states ease pandemic-related restrictions that strangled the economy for months. But a full return to normal isn’t likely to happen until November 2021, according to Ezekiel (Zeke) Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton professor of health care management.
Food systems are essential to economic activity because they provide the energy that we need to live and work. However, macroeconomists have long ignored them in the belief that the global agri-food industry, now highly mechanized, subsidized and concentrated, offers all we could wish for when it comes to food.
As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, people in all countries are being encouraged to take precautions to prevent transmission, including in many countries by staying at home and physical distancing. But a pandemic does not erase other diseases and their impact. While many services, including some health services, are being scaled back, the risk of further outbreaks of infectious diseases grows. The healthcare disruptions caused by COVID-19 could have a devastating impact on child mortality.
When Covid-19 infiltrated the West African countries of Nigeria, Liberia, and Burkina Faso in early March, Ghanaians wondered, were they next? Many did not expect to be. Unlike its neighbors, Ghana had been largely spared from past pandemics like Ebola. That health crisis in 2014-15 had crippled Liberia and Guinea, recounted Vida Duti, who is the country director for the aid group IRC Ghana. Ghanaians began to hope that history would repeat itself and the new coronavirus would never cross into their country.
Kenyan media exploded with a disturbing story last month: “Close to 4,000 school girls impregnated in Kenya during COVID-19 lockdown”, read one headline. “Alarm as 3,964 girls impregnated in Machakos County in five months”, stated another.
COVID-19 affects more than physical health. Howard Stevenson and Shirley Spence describe how the pandemic is causing psychological trauma across a broad swath of society—and innovative methods to treat it.
The index informs COVID-19 planning and response, especially among Africa’s most vulnerable regions—those that will struggle to weather a COVID-19 outbreak and its health, economic and social impacts without support. The index assesses seven kinds of vulnerability for 751 regions in 48 countries. The overall index (CCVI) is made up of seven themes: age; epidemiological factors; fragility; strength of health systems; population density; socioeconomic factors; and access to transportation and housing.
Our adjusted model suggests 1.4m people in Nairobi County will be infected with COVID-19 during its life-cycle peaking in September 2020. According to the adjusted model, 102,742 will show symptoms. 8,755 people will need hospitalization over the next year, with 1,505 passing through ICU facilities. 928 will die.
Economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed East Africa’s growth projection for 2020 down to 1.2 percent, a rate that outstrips other African regions and is forecast to rebound to 3.7 percent in 2021, according to the African Development Bank’s East Africa Regional Economic Outlook 2020. The projection is under the baseline scenario that assumes the virus is contained by the third quarter of this year.
Millions of refugees across Africa face even greater food insecurity because of aid disruption and rising food prices linked to the COVID-19 crisis, UN humanitarians warned on Thursday.
This paper uses Kenyan trade data published up through May 2020 to provide a preliminary evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on regional trade in the East African Community (EAC). Paradoxically, given the prevailing pessimism surrounding the prospects for global trade, Kenya actually experienced a significant improvement in exports in the first quarter of the year, together with a moderation of imports, leading to a marked decline in the trade deficit. While the initial shock to Kenyan trade caused by the COVID-19 crisis initially looked dramatic in terms of the declines registered, this paper reveals that i) the shock is not so alarming when seasonality is taken into account; ii) re-exports and imports have been the primary foci of impact; and iii) domestic exports have actually performed extraordinarily well under the circumstances, with incremental growth since 2019.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank have approved a grant of $480,000 to Libya under the Special Relief Fund (SRF) for the procurement of much-needed personal protective equipment (PPE) intended for treatment of cases of infection of the novel Coronavirus. The Bank’s funding will contribute to supporting the country’s national Response Plan for COVID-19. The assistance is intended to focus on infection prevention and control and to shield communities, particularly those most vulnerable including the health workers.
Late March saw long queues outside supermarkets as anxious shoppers waited to stockpile supplies. Three months on the queues are still there; now shoppers, two metres apart and with pockets full of hand sanitiser, are lining up for a socially-distanced visit to the store.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the working lives of just about everyone, but early evidence shows it has hit women the hardest. There is opportunity in the mix of measures forced upon companies and workers, however, and some could help advance the role of women once current restrictions are lifted. The pandemic can’t be allowed to set back the progress made thus far. Instead, changes such as more flexible working hours and work-from-home need to be examples carried over to increase the pace of improvements.
The COVID-19 pandemic is testing health care and disaster management systems of countries and the agility of policy responses to effectively handle a public health catastrophe. Since the first reported case in Africa on February 14, countries in the region have responded to the disease with varying levels of success, with many countries taking the lead in various ways. For example, on March 4, Nigeria was the first African country to sequence the SARS-CoV-2 genome. South Africa is now leading the continent in testing per capita—27,485 tests per million people as of July 1—currently ranked 19th globally.
As the first known healthy carrier of the bacterial disease, which is transmitted by a toxin in feces, Mallon refused to believe she was an asymptomatic conduit for typhoid fever. She refused to give stool samples to authorities and continued to spread the bacteria via her unsanitary ways until she was caught and quarantined twice for a total of 26 years, dying alone without friends.
Governments and development partners must respond in a more coordinated, targeted, and rapid manner to be effective in limiting impacts and an additional 49 million Africans could be pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic and its aftermath; West and Central Africa stand to be worst hit
In their efforts to stave off a second wave of COVID-19, scientists from around the world have turned to a new ally: sewage. In the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain, researchers are poring over samples of wastewater for signs of the coronavirus, which is believed to be shed in human feces.
As countries around the world emerge from lockdown, many are left wondering how the world will change as a result. The demanding circumstances can be turned into important lessons and vital social change. Every now and again you stumble upon a phrase that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
While the COVID-19 pandemic will have devastating health and socioeconomic effects across Africa, it offers the opportunity for young people to rewrite the narrative that they are disengaged and apathetic. Young volunteers across the continent are already playing a role in their communities, using their knowledge of technology and global networks to organise and deliver vital information.
Least developed countries have been hard hit economically, as borders are closed to trade and tourism. If this continues, they could drift away from global value chains and be left out of the international trade system. International trade and investment are a pivotal component in future economic and financial recovery plans.
In our previous three articles in this series (see Part I, Part II and Part III) we explored how parties may rely on force majeure clauses, on the doctrines of frustration, impossibility and impracticability of performance or on Material Adverse Change clauses as defences to non-performance or delayed performance resulting from the impact of COVID-19.
The hospitality industry has arguably, together with the airline industry and the tourism industry, been the most impacted globally by the on-going Covid-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding this, there are several lessons which hotel owners and hotel operators can learn from the disruption created by the Covid-19 pandemic. While the immediate focus in light of Covid-19 has been on performance test and force majeure provisions of a hotel management agreement or franchise agreement, in this article, we highlight some of the other provisions of hotel operating contracts which may have significant commercial and legal implications for hotel owners and developers in light of Covid-19 and which hotel owners should consider when negotiating future hotel operating contracts or re-negotiating existing contracts.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across Africa, hospitals across the continent face shortages of essential medical supplies needed to treat the respiratory disease and keep patients alive. Not just masks and ventilators, but oxygen.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across Africa, hospitals across the continent face shortages of essential medical supplies needed to treat the respiratory disease and keep patients alive. Not just masks and ventilators, but oxygen.
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is shining a green light on women’s leadership skills. With only 20 countries led by women, female voices are being obscured in a crisis that disproportionately affects women.
Tomorrow marks six months since WHO received the first reports of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in China. The six-month anniversary of the outbreak coincides with reaching 10 million cases and 500,000 deaths. This is a moment for all of us to reflect on the progress we have made and the lessons we have learned, and to recommit ourselves to doing everything we can to save lives.
The return phase of the COVID-19 crisis is a good time for organizations to create more tailored responses to workplace challenges, expanding on the goodwill and camaraderie earned in earlier phases.
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world’s youngest population, and one that is increasingly well-educated and teeming with innovative talent and entrepreneurial drive. Almost as soon as the COVID-19 alarm rang, long before African governments and their development partners realized it, Africa’s startups saw opportunities and sprang into action. While policymakers and donors were considering the procurement of hundreds of millions of dollars in medical supplies from around the world, and convening response consultations with high-level teams and experts, these young entrepreneurs were already addressing the pandemic’s effects on the ground.
The European Union (EU) has provided EUR 10 million towards the implementation of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 Outbreak. The funding is the initial contribution by Team Europe to the continental action against COVID-19.
Most vaccines must be kept at a narrow temperature range between two and eight degrees centigrade in order to remain effective. The COVID-19 vaccine, when it comes, is likely to be no different.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a 100.5 million euros loan to the government of Gabon as budget support to mitigate against the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Despite apocalyptic predictions, Africa may be better positioned than many think to weather the combined shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, collapsing commodity prices, and global economic recession, assuming its leaders act wisely. While African economies’ performance has varied, overall progress during the last two decades has made the continent more resilient than ever before.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, mineral-processing companies were grappling with profound uncertainty. Those that took steps to harness the power of AI improved agility and operational resilience.
The current plans to reopen EU countries are too blunt. Citizens from different countries are either blocked or fully allowed to travel. This will result in new outbreaks. Instead, there should be tiers of countries based on best guesses on prevalence and value per visitor. Within that, higher value visitors such as those owning a home should be treated differently. There is no excuse for lack of PCR tests. European countries with special situations, such as Sweden, Portugal or the UK should be treated separately.
In late 2019, a novel coronavirus was causing infections in China. The virus had close virological characteristics to the coronavirus that caused SARS (SARS-CoV) and was named SARS-CoV-2. Even though the SARS-CoV-2 has been less fatal than SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 has been much more infectious. Very quickly after the Chinese outbreak, other countries began reporting cases. The evolving epidemic was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020.
Despite the effects of COVID-19, Africa’s young creative industries remain ripe for investment opportunities. African music, film, and fashion continue to gain global popularity, with companies like Netflix and Universal Music Group expanding their presence on the continent.
It’s too early to know how the COVID-19 pandemic will ultimately change society. But the response of millennials and Generation Z, battle-hardened and steadfast in maintaining their values, will be key. The 2020 Deloitte Global Millennial Survey reveals a younger generation whose resilience and determination will surely shape the world that emerges.
The coronavirus lockdown measures imposed by governments around the world have caused severe disruption to supply chains, as companies were forced to shut in March.
The Ngorongoro district in Arusha region is a land of craters, sacred forests and mountains, wild animals and the Maasai people. This community has learnt to co-exist with nature, sharing land, wild food, herbs and water with the wild animals that roam freely.
he COVID-19 pandemic pushed economies into a Great Lockdown, which helped contain the virus and save lives, but also triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression. Over 75 percent of countries are now reopening at the same time as the pandemic is intensifying in many emerging market and developing economies. Several countries have started to recover. However, in the absence of a medical solution, the strength of the recovery is highly uncertain and the impact on sectors and countries uneven.
As the world continues to grapple with the effects of COVID-19, no part of society seems to be left unscathed. Fears are surmounting around the economy’s health, and dramatic changes in life as we know it are also underway.
COVID-19 has highlighted a number of global vulnerabilities, including those connected to food supplies. New mindsets, collaborations and technological applications will be needed to ensure a just, sustainable and resilient food system in the long term. COVID-19 didn't just empty grocery shelves across much of the so-called “developed world.” It weakened already precarious systems in some regions leading to what the UN has called "historic" setbacks in the fight against hunger.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is expected to take an especially heavy toll on emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs1) that have large informal sectors. Informal workers and firms are often not registered with the government and have no access to government benefits. Informality is associated with underdevelopment in a wide range of areas, such as widespread poverty, lack of access to financial systems, deficient public health and medical resources, and weak social safety nets. These vulnerabilities have amplified the economic shock to livelihoods in the face of COVID-19 and will push millions of people into extreme poverty, with a particularly severe impact on women.
In Somalia, there are some days when the sky suddenly darkens as hundreds of millions of hungry desert locusts descend over the country’s crops. This year’s locust outbreak is Somalia’s worst in 25 years, threatening the food supply, and prompting the government to declare a national emergency in February. The infestation was exacerbated by heavy floods that have displaced half a million people and created an ideal breeding ground for the locusts. To that nightmare scenario, add a pandemic. A pandemic in a country already fighting many serious threats, such as terrorist groups who control large parts of rural areas, or the widespread corruption in the country.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Monday approved a $10 million loan to the Republic of Seychelles to support the government’s COVID-19 response program. The loan will be channeled toward macroeconomic stabilization, strengthening national health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and safeguarding livelihoods and social safety nets. Against a backdrop of declining revenues, the Seychelles government recently amended its budget to respond more effectively to COVID-19, taking on an immense financial burden as it works to enhance the country’s health systems, mitigate job losses, and redress lost business and household incomes.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Monday approved a EUR 88 million loan to Cameroon as direct budget support to finance the country’s COVID-19 crisis response. The loan, to the country’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Budget Support Programme (PABRC), falls under the framework of the Bank’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Facility (CRF) of up to $10 billion, the institution’s main channel to cushion African countries from the economic and health impacts of the crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shut down one-third of the global economy and triggered the largest economic shock since the Great Depression. The recovery requires collective leadership, write Bertrand Badré, a former Managing Director of the World Bank and Yves Tiberghien, co-chair of the Vision 20 Initiative.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Monday approved a $10 million loan to the Republic of Seychelles to support the government’s COVID-19 response program. The loan will be channeled toward macroeconomic stabilization, strengthening national health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and safeguarding livelihoods and social safety nets.
Most countries around the world have slowly begun to ease their COVID-19 lockdown restrictions; curfews are being lifted, borders are reopening and certain businesses including airlines and restaurants are resuming operations after months of closure. The current daily curfew and travel restrictions which are in force in Kenya were slightly relaxed on 6 June 2020 and whilst we cannot anticipate whether these will be completely lifted, the restrictions will likely be gradually further eased. It is therefore expected that most businesses will begin to reopen over the next few months. Accordingly, employers need to begin putting in place measures to ensure the health and safety of their employees as the return back to the workplace.
The global spread of COVID-19 and the rising number of confirmed cases in Africa have raised concerns about the weak health care systems in the region, while the lockdowns have caused economies to contract substantially. Receiving less public attention, and yet also putting at risk lives and livelihoods, is the likelihood that COVID-19 and the associated economic challenges will spill into an African food crisis if the food system cannot cope. Half of Africans already face food insecurity, of which 50 percent are severely food insecure, while the number of people who are hungry is likely to double in 2020.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Wednesday approved a UA 3 million ($4.16 million) grant to South Sudan to support the emergency response to COVID-19 and strengthen the country’s fragile health system. The grant, from the Transitional Support Facility of the Bank Group’s African Development Fund, will provide funding for the project to enhance the capacity of South Sudan’s health facilities and to bolster the country’s capacity to detect cases and curb the spread of the virus.
This daily round-up brings you a selection of the latest news updates on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, as well as tips and tools to help you stay informed and protected. Today's top stories: India's case fatality rate spikes, Beijing raises health alert and a drug breakthrough that reduces COVID-19 deaths.
On January 28, at around one in the morning, Dr. John Nkengasong's cellphone rang in Addis Ababa. Nigerian officials told Nkengasong, the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that a recently arrived Italian businessman had tested positive for Covid-19. He later recovered. But the force of infection, mostly coming from Europe, seeded the virus in countries throughout the continent, say health officials. As imported cases increased, and community transmission began, the World Health Organization began sounding the alarm in press conferences and statements about an unfolding crisis on the continent. They said Covid-19 patients could quickly overwhelm the weak health infrastructure. Melinda Gates, in an interview with CNN, went even further in April.
COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it jumps between animals and people, and is therefore closely connected to the lands both inhabit. Human and economic activity is eroding wild spaces, forests and other important ecosystems, bringing us closer to “reservoir hosts”—animals and plants that can harbour diseases. In this interview.
The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes the initial clinical trial results from the United Kingdom (UK) that show dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, can be lifesaving for patients who are critically ill with COVID-19. For patients on ventilators, the treatment was shown to reduce mortality by about one third, and for patients requiring only oxygen, mortality was cut by about one fifth, according to preliminary findings shared with WHO. The benefit was only seen in patients seriously ill with COVID-19, and was not observed in patients with milder disease.
Ensuring that the continent’s small and medium-size enterprises have access to the capital and expertise they need is critical to combating COVID-19 effectively. African-owned solutions that are adapted to local conditions and create valuable employment opportunities may be the key to mitigating the pandemic’s economic impact.
The massive macro-financial shock caused by the pandemic continues to ravage the global economy and has put both banks and borrowers under severe strain. Supervisors find themselves confronted with unprecedented challenges which call for decisive action to ensure that banking systems support the real economy while preserving financial stability. This blog introduces nine joint IMF-World Bank recommendations to help supervisors navigate these uncharted waters and calls for vigilance regarding policy measures taken that are not consistent with international standards. This is critical to prevent the health and economic crisis morphing into a financial crisis.
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation—inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures—and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.
Corruption, state capture, extravagant expenditure, poor leadership and lack of respect for the rule of law are among the non-sustainable, endangering and risky patterns of behaviour endemic across Africa. Caring for the common good, for our neighbours, and for the country is essential for sustainability, for the preservation of this generation and future generations. Care is built on empathy. Sadly, Covid-19 has laid bare not only our health sector’s lack of preparedness but also our lack of empathy, our apathy.
The African Development Bank has responded swiftly to the needs of its member countries during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Bank’s operations have continued to run smoothly since the first cases appeared in early March, despite the wide range of lockdowns and measures imposed by governments to flatten the curve. The COVID-19 pandemic is forecast to cause Africa’s GDP to drop by between $22.1 billion and $88.3 billion.
After Brazil was the first emerging market to get a test drive of the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine last month, it’s Russia that is the first to complete early phase human trials of a potential new vaccine to stop Covid-19.
In light of COVID-19, several guidelines have been issued by various authorities for the conduct of virtual meetings. The Institute of Certified Secretaries has issued Governance Guideline for Virtual Meetings (the Guidelines). All virtual meetings must be permitted and organisations must document policies and procedures guiding virtual meetings. Organisations can opt for hybrid meetings, proxy forms and circular resolutions where they are unable to hold a fully virtual meeting to allow for full participation.
The ongoing pandemic has demonstrated the critical importance of digital technologies. While private sector firms consider digital capabilities as a core driver of competitiveness, this is still a relatively new concept for governments. What are digital capabilities? They can be visualized as the “glue” linking together the five pillars of the digital economy: digital infrastructure, digital platforms, digital entrepreneurhip, digital financial services, and digital skills. In today’s digital age, digital capabilities are a prerequisite to the transformation of our nations and our economies.
Covid-19 is among the deadliest pandemics the world has experienced in recent history. The African continent has, thus far, fared comparatively well with just under 150,000 confirmed infections and about 5,000 fatalities as of early June 2020.1 Even so, the heavy economic, social, and emotional toll of the pandemic on the continent is already clear, and some analysts estimate that the situation will worsen in the coming months. Given its underresourced health-care systems and lack of social safety nets, Africa’s best hope for mitigating the spread of Covid-19 lies in community-based prevention efforts. This will require very strong locally led campaigns of information dissemination, along with community mobilization and sensitization. We contend that Africa’s large youth population must play a prominent role as key drivers in the fight against the pandemic. Moreover, we argue for prevention interventions that are germane to communities’ social and cultural values in order for them to be fully engrained in their everyday life praxis.
COVID-19 could spark a global recession, reversing up to three decades of improvements in living standards. According to one estimate, 420-580 million people worldwide could be pushed into poverty. It's vital that governing bodies and world banks work together to support the countries than are unable to support themselves, write two former world leaders and two economists.
With 2.6 million internally displaced persons in Somalia, the outbreak of COVID-19 poses an additional challenge in an already fragile situation, leaving the population highly vulnerable. Thankfully, the African Development Bank-financed water supply and sanitation project came in handy as a critical control intervention, although COVID-19 was not anticipated in 2016 when the project was launched.
Exceptional times call for exceptional action. In response to COVID-19, the IMF has moved with unprecedented speed and magnitude of financial assistance to help countries protect lives and livelihoods. Economic stabilization and a sustainable recovery, however, will require more than financial assistance. For recovery to be sustainable, policymakers will need to strengthen economic institutions that enable resilient, inclusive policies.
The lifting of lockdowns is posing an urgent question for people emerging warily back into society: where are they most at risk of contracting coronavirus? The dangers vary greatly with activity and it is not always clear that members of the public, or indeed the authorities, are gauging the hazards accurately, say experts.
Sweden has famously followed a different coronavirus strategy than most of the rest of the Developed world: Let the virus run loose, curb it enough to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm the healthcare system like in Hubei, Italy or Spain, but don’t try to eliminate it. They think stopping it completely is impossible. The natural consequence is that most citizens get infected, and that eventually slows down the epidemic. That’s why, in short, people call that strategy “Herd Immunity”.
For decades, global economic leaders touted the benefits of globalization, such as increased cross-border trade or reduced global inequalities. The 2010s, however, saw a rise in political nationalism, as the reduction in global economic inequality had led to an increase in much national inequality. As a result, globalization had become an easy target with free trade deals painted as an evil spectre meant to steal your job. The fact that a trade deal could result in job losses, can be better attributed to weak social systems unable to cope with the brunt of demand for new job opportunities than opening the global economy. As the world explores the changes needed for a “great reset” – as set forth by Professor Klaus Schwab – a top priority must be to allow for proper and equitable access to financial markets.
Thomas Edison upended the world with his novel idea for an electric utility that would centrally power homes and industry. One hundred forty years later, the power industry has been quietly decarbonizing, even as it remains a marvel of efficiency and reliability. As economies gradually feel their way to the “next normal” that is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic—which has curtailed commercial and industrial demand, created new volatility in markets for fossil fuels, and required operational changes to ensure employee safety—industry operators may need to recalibrate the speed and scope of ongoing efforts to curb climate change.
Sababil Al-Haj Hussain lives in the Sudanese locality of Al Rahad, which sits in the middle of a semi-arid ribbon of land known as the Sahel. Life there has long been challenging. The area is prone to both droughts, which are being made more severe by climate change, and conflicts between farmers and animal herders over the shrinking availability of fertile land. The situation has led many men to migrate away from Al Rahad in search of new job opportunities, leaving women behind to care for their families. In the absence of men, many women have taken on new economic responsibilities to make up for lost income, but remain largely excluded from the decision-making bodies that manage natural resources and local disputes.
As coronavirus has torn its way around the world, claiming lives and livelihoods, and paralyzing whole swathes of the economy, businesses in almost every sector have been left grappling with the question of how to stay financially buoyant.
This daily round-up brings you a selection of the latest news updates on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, as well as tips and tools to help you stay informed and protected. Today's headlines: Coronavirus deaths pass 400,000; Saudi cases pass 100,000; Some Hydroxychloroquine trials move forward after others halted.
COVID-19 has triggered the deepest global recession in decades. While the ultimate outcome is still uncertain, the pandemic will result in contractions across the vast majority of emerging market and developing economies. It will also do lasting damage to labor productivity and potential output. The immediate policy priorities are to alleviate the human costs and atenuate the near-term economic losses. Once the crisis abates, it will be necessary to reaffirm credible commitment to sustainable policies and undertake the necessary reforms to buttress long-term prospects. Global coordination and cooperation will be critical.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Friday approved a $288.5 million loan to help Nigeria tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its impact on people and businesses. The loan will bolster the government’s plans to improve surveillance and response to COVID-19 emergencies, ease the impact on workers and businesses and strengthen the social protection system.
While academic debates continue about how to define the rule of law, its absence is almost always universally acknowledged. Like good leadership, it is most appreciated when absent. An element of the rule of law that is not disputed is that the exercise of arbitrary power must be constrained by subordinating it to well-defined, established and enforceable laws.
In our previous two articles in this series, we covered how parties may rely on force majeure clauses or on the doctrines of frustration, impossibility or impracticability of performance as defences to non-performance or delayed performance as a result of the impacts of COVID-19. Part III explores how parties may be able to rely on Material Adverse Change or Event clauses, which are regularly found in certain types of agreements, such as investment agreements, project financing documents and debt arrangements.
Kenyans and Britons alike have been forced to change their way of life by the coronavirus that is sweeping across the world. The immediate impacts of the virus can be severe, but the secondary impacts—on jobs, livelihoods, our children’s education, higher learning—are also apparent.
The COVID-19 pandemic is crippling the economies of rich and poor countries alike. Yet for many low-income and fragile states, the economic shock will be magnified by the loss of remittances—money sent home by migrant and guest workers employed in foreign countries.
As the coronavirus swept across the world, Africans had a growing sense that they were on their own. If there were going to be a savior, it would be Africans themselves.
The COVID-19 pandemic has so far infected more than 6.2 million people and claimed over 379,000 lives and has also brought massive job loss, unprecedented drops in remittances, and recessions to countries in developing regions. It seems like every third article we read this week included a striking historical comparison: the lowest remittances in a decade, the worst contraction since the financial crisis, the worst month in recorded history. In the face of enormous economic impacts, more countries are taking first steps to reopen their economies.
In the last century, a combination of population growth and reduction in ecosystems and biodiversity has created unprecedented opportunities for zoonotic diseases - where pathogens pass between animals and people. In 2016, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) flagged a worldwide increase in zoonotic epidemics.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Friday approved a $288.5 million loan to help Nigeria tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its impact on people and businesses. The loan will bolster the government’s plans to improve surveillance and response to COVID-19 emergencies, ease the impact on workers and businesses and strengthen the social protection system.
The vulnerability of any population to COVID19 is linked to the demographic structure of the population, and associated vulnerabilities, due to underlying health conditions which aggravate the impact of the virus on the body’s system. Mortality rates in China, South-East Asia and a number of European countries show that older people are much more likely to be severely affected by COVID19, and to die from the infection, than younger people. Amongst elder people, men are twice as likely to die as women. Underlying health conditions of particular relevance include lung disease, diabetes, heart-related problems, and other consequences of obesity. People under the age of 60 are much less likely to die from infection by the virus. Although there are a significant number of deaths amongst younger people, they are often associated with pre-existing health problems. In this way, the COVID19 virus is quite different from the 1918-19 influenza pandemic which led to 50 million deaths worldwide, since this preferentially attacked and killed young people.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, the disease has spread to more than 200 countries and territories. In the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment, governments worldwide have responded by implementing unprecedented containment and mitigation measures—the Great Lockdown. This in turn has resulted in large short-term economic losses, and a decline in global economic activity not seen since the Great Depression. Did it work?
COVID-19 is, first and foremost, a global humanitarian challenge. Thousands of health professionals are heroically battling the virus, putting their own lives at risk. Governments and industry are working together to understand and address the challenge, support victims and their families and communities, and search for treatments and a vaccine.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on Friday approved a loan of 88 million euros to Senegal, hit hard by the novel coronavirus pandemic, in support of the costs of its national COVID-19 Economic and Social Resilience Program.
For decades, ecotourism has helped to conserve nature and protect endangered species. COVID-19 and the subsequent closure of ecotourism sites has had an indelible impact on wildlife and the communities that protect it.
COVID-19 has exposed just how vulnerable our global food systems are. The pandemic has accelerated the risk of famine as lockdown measures have impacted on incomes and trade. Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Dag-Inge Ulstein, Norway’s Minister of International Development explain what steps can be taken.
It’s long been said that three things matter in real estate: location, location, location. But based on trends that have been reshaping other industries, competition in real estate has spread to another area: customer experience.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), full or partial lockdown measures around the world are affecting almost 2.7 billion workers representing about 81 percent of the global workforce. The Covid-19 crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.
The laws governing businesses in Kenya are numerous and broad and sometimes operate differently, which can often times give rise to inconsistencies and lack of clarity, to consternation of those subject to the myriad of laws. However, during this pandemic period, acting within the confines of the law has become more and more challenging for businesses due to the disruptions caused by Covid-19.
The economic downturn resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges to businesses and brought into sharp focus the difficulties businesses are facing. It is no longer ‘business as usual’. To cushion their economies from the effects of the pandemic, countries around the world, Kenya included, are taking measures aimed at resuscitating businesses.
In February, Moses Joloba, a Ugandan microbiologist who usually works on tuberculosis diagnostics, received an unusual offer from a collaborator in the United States.
Several debates on the StopCovid digital tracking application have taken up a lot of space in French press columns in recent weeks. Although the application should be available at the beginning of June, a new system has been built in parallel: the manual monitoring of infected persons through "health brigades" armed with two databases - Covid Contact and a screening information system called "SI-DEP". While both of these systems have the same goal, i.e. to identify cases of possible transmission so that they can be isolated and tested, the two systems should not be functioning entirely independently of one another, nor should two separate systems keep tracking from being clear and effective.
Accurate and timely economic data are crucial for informing policy decisions, especially during a crisis. But the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the production of many key statistics. Without reliable data, policymakers cannot assess how badly the pandemic is hurting people and the economy, nor can they properly monitor the recovery. We are working with member countries and other international agencies to address these data disruptions and keep economic data flowing.
“The global coronavirus pandemic, which has already caused unimaginable devastation and hardship, has brought our way of life to an almost complete halt. The outbreak will have profound and lasting economic and social consequences in every corner of the globe,” says United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen.
The world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis that is causing chaos in the global economy, disrupting supply chains, and transforming society. The new reality is accelerating business model transformation at a faster pace than ever before to ensure existential survival in a crisis for which no one was prepared.
Africa Day celebrates the birthday of the Organisation of African Unity, which was established on May 25th, 1963 – 57 years ago - and its successor organization is the African Union, which was established in 2002.
With 314 confirmed cases of the virus as of May 22, the East African country has enlisted the help of five anti-epidemic robots to battle the virus.
The COVID-19 pandemic and Government-imposed measures to contain its spread have triggered a large-scale disruption of the Kenyan economy, leading to a slowdown in many sectors. Given the local and global effects of the pandemic, businesses are grappling with their inability to meet their obligations under existing contracts.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in the number of people making or updating their wills. The virus brings into sharp focus the importance of succession planning and putting a will in place. After all, it is prudent to set out your wishes as to who should inherit from your estate rather than letting the intestacy provisions under the Law of Succession Act of Kenya dictate who your estate should vest in the unfortunate event of death.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) is a zoonotic disease. Zoonotic diseases are transmitted between animals and humans. Diseases passed from animals to humans are a significant threat to human health. When the symptoms are serious, our lack of prior exposure means humans have no existing antibodies to defend themselves against the disease. Recent zoonotic disease outbreaks include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS (2002); Avian Influenza or bird flu (2004); H1N1 or Swine Flu (2009); Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS (2012); Ebola (2014– 2015); Zika virus (2015–2016); and the West Nile virus (2019).
The African Development Bank has approved a €188 mllion euro loan to the Republic of Mauritius to finance a national budget support programme to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Group’s Board of Directors said Friday. The main aim of the Covid-19 Rapid Response Facility (CRF), established by the Mauritian Government, is to support the national response fighting the ongoing outbreak, and to mitigate the adverse economic and social effects of the disease. The response is based on three pillars: to consolidate health systems; to protect livelihoods, income security and access to essential goods and services; and to build a resilient private sector as a prelude to the recovery of the economy.
The loan will extend additional resources to Kenya as the country takes steps to contain the spread of the pandemic and deal with its unprecedented impact. It follows a request by the Government of Kenya, as part of its COVID-19 Emergency Response intervention, to help contain the scourge.
West African governments are responding to Coronavirus (COVID-19) by closing borders, banning foreign travellers, closing schools and implementing curfews to stop the spread of the virus. Many economic sectors in West Africa such as tourism, transport and entertainment, have slowed to a near standstill, putting millions of jobs at risk.
The number of COVID-19 related deaths has become a key indicator to track the impact of the pandemic in countries and across the world. However, this number is not easily collected and reported by every country. To support national governments with surveillance and response planning, WHO has partnered with Vital Strategies and other global partners to launch a new technical package: Revealing the Toll of COVID-19: A Technical Package for Rapid Mortality Surveillance and Epidemic Response.
COVID-19 has had a huge impact on global tourism, particularly in New Zealand, where tourism is the biggest export. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has suggested businesses could shift to a four-day working week to boost domestic tourism. The government has announced a USD $244 million Tourism Recovery Fund and will advise businesses on how to pivot to the domestic market. One New Zealand company that adopted a four-day working week in 2018 found it improved workers’ well-being, while boosting productivity.
The Forum asked 350 of the world's top risk experts to assess the most likely and most concerning fallout risks from COVID-19 over the next 18 months. The findings highlight: the economy, cybersecurity, environment and social anxiety as the top concerns. The perceived emerging risks serve as a warning of how things could turn out if handled poorly, but they offer a means to change direction before it is too late.
This presentation looks at: Amendments to 56 existing primary enactments • Regulations to flesh out details of certain amendments • Regulations to prevent resurgence of epidemics and transmission of infectious diseases • Regulations to provide for sanitary measures in the transport industry • Repeal of Quarantine Act 1954 and enactment of more detailed Quarantine Act 2020 • Tougher penalties for offences committed under the Quarantine Act 2020 and public health legislation • Potential issues of human rights.
Shortly after the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Mauritius, the Prime Minister announced that the country would be in confinement as from 20 March 2020. At the time of writing, we are still in a state of sanitary curfew until 01 June 2020 although certain activities have been allowed to re-open since 15 May 2020. The fallout from COVID-19 having reached our shores has led to heightened concerns about public health and protection of the population from a second wave of infections, as well as a damaged economy in need of a relaunch.
Egyptians, known throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for their flamboyant Ramadan celebrations, are experiencing a more subdued month of fasting this year. If the lack of merriment were the only casualty in the time of COVID-19, it might be tolerable. But the expected economic and social fallout is daunting.
The necessity for the rule of law is impressed upon us at this time as a result of the manner in which the virus has revealed the State’s glaring weaknesses. It therefore behoves us to look into the BBI, and to contextualise it in Kenya’s rule of law history.
Even before the pandemic, there were signs that global food prices could soon surge. Extreme weather events induced by climate change have become more common. African swine fever wiped out over one-quarter of the world’s pig population last year, causing food prices in China to increase by 15-22% year-on-year so far in 2020. And, more recently, the worst locust blight in 70 years has destroyed crops in East Africa. In Kenya, the price of maize, a staple food, has risen by over 60% since 2019.
In early March, Ingrid Gercama left her home in the Netherlands and flew to war-torn South Sudan. An applied-research anthropologist with a special interest in epidemics, she had spent time on the African continent during a public-health emergency before, remaining in Liberia, in 2014, during that country’s Ebola outbreak.
Covid-19 is not to be offhandedly dismissed. It has egregiously affected small, medium and multinational businesses alike and put to the test how we transact and do business domestically and internationally. There has perhaps not been a greater incentive to transform business culture than presented by this pandemic.
Researchers are working at breakneck speed both to understand the virus and also to develop potential vaccines, medicines and other technologies. The Access to COVID-19 Accelerator is uniting efforts on many fronts to ensure we have safe, effective and affordable therapeutics and vaccines in the shortest time possible.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented health and economic challenges across the world. While the greatest effect of the pandemic has been loss of life and strain on health facilities, businesses have not been spared.
In response to the rise of COVID-19 cases in Kenya, the Government has implemented various measures and restrictions to contain the spread of the virus across the country. These include cessation of movement into and out of four counties, as well as travel restrictions with a general embargo on international passenger flights. Both the pandemic and restrictions imposed by the Government have triggered a large-scale disruption of the Kenyan economy, leading to a slowdown in many sectors, and in particular in the tourism, hospitality, trade and transport industries. Given the local and global effects of the pandemic, businesses are grappling with their inability to meet their obligations under existing contracts.
The Covid-19 made its mark and forced the global economy to slow down, raising fears of the worst consequences for production, jobs and the immediate future of developing economies. Fiscal and monetary authorities around the world engage in policies to support economies, with funds and initiatives.
In response to the rise of COVID-19 cases in Kenya, the Government has implemented various measures and restrictions to contain the spread of the virus across the country. These include cessation of movement into and out of four counties, namely Nairobi, Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale, a nation-wide curfew between the hours of 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. and travel restrictions with a general embargo on international passenger flights.
Countries are reopening. They want to imitate the success of countries like South Korea or Taiwan. We now know they can do that with great testing and contact tracing, isolations and quarantines, by mandating home-made masks, with hygiene, physical distancing and public education.
The adverse effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic (the “Pandemic”) have resulted in not only health and social crises, but also in huge economic problems. As countries have closed their borders, export trade has been seriously impacted. The tourism industry is also highly affected as it closely dependent on global movement of peoples and the inbound flow of FDI has been severely affected. The reliable estimate of the extent of the damage is yet to be determined. To mitigate the adverse effect of the Pandemic on the economy, the government has decided to provide financial assistance to the business community.
Now, with so many people falling ill from the coronavirus (COVID-19), unhealthy diets are contributing to pre-existing conditions that put them more at risk. And in much of the world, illness also means loss of income. Hence the pandemic has raised the stakes for consumers, producers and policy makers worldwide. What would it take to get healthy food right? Answers to this question are as pressing and relevant as ever.
We are living through unprecedented times. The impact of the novel coronavirus and its disease, COVID-19, has reverberated through every corner of the globe—taking lives, destroying livelihoods, and changing everything about how we interact with each other and the world.
In April, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa published “COVID-19 in Africa: Protecting Lives and Economies,” which analyzes the potential human and economic cost of the pandemic in Africa, and argues that strong partnerships—both regional and international—will be needed to reduce the impact of the crisis. In particular, the report states that continued trade, medical cooperation—including the sharing of intellectual property on testing kits and vaccines—and innovative financing facilities from development finance institutions can play a crucial role in saving lives and bolstering economies.
In 1990, when Cameroon's football team did the unthinkable and beat Argentina in the World Cup, the proportion of the world's population living below the poverty line was 35.9%. Fast-forward 35 years to 2015, following a global adoption of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this figure now stands at 10%. To use the concept of a universal benevolent dictator – a classic assumption in beginner economic courses to escape the complexities of real-world decision-making – such a person would no doubt have said, "The world is doing infinitely better!”
The world is grappling with an unprecedented health crisis that has triggered the worst economic recession of the century. Be it manufacturing, supply chain, exports or project execution, the entire business ecosystem experienced a sudden collapse. Energy demand, which is directly linked to economic activity, also contracted. But not surprisingly, the great lockdown had a more dramatic impact on oil demand than electricity. For instance in the UK, the electricity consumption is down by around 13%, while oil demand could have roughly decreased by half.
The IMF is providing emergency financial assistance and debt relief to member countries facing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tables below include emergency financing approved by the IMF’s Executive Board under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI), as well as augmentation of existing financing arrangements. Debt relief grants, financed by the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), are also shown below.
Whilst wealthier citizens across the globe are able to self-isolate during lockdown, for many people, this is simply not possible. The World Bank has identified hotspots where the inhabitants are at high risk of being in contact with coronavirus.
As a result of reduced economic activity and containment measures during the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in reduced incomes, various issues relating to the real estate sector, including landlord and tenant concerns, have arisen across the country. In order to ameliorate the impact, various interventions, including to the extent necessary, legislative interventions, are required.
The government of Mauritius responded early to the COVID-19 pandemic with stringent lockdown measures and saw a drastic reduction in new cases. This column examines the Mauritian response and estimates that the measures led to an 80% reduction in the coronavirus transmission rate. A well-implemented and early ‘hard lockdown’ can be effective in managing the spread of COVID-19.
I am happy to share with you that Pfizer and our collaborator, BioNTech, announced positive efficacy results from our Phase 3, late-stage study of our potential COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis.
The Covid-19 outbreak in Kenya has caused widespread disruption to daily lives and the manner in which businesses operate. It is evident that urgent legislative responses are required to cushion against the far reaching effects that Covid-19 has and continues to have on individuals and businesses in Kenya.
The coronavirus pandemic could pose a huge challenge to Somalia. To manage the crisis, the federal government should reach out to and coordinate with political rivals. It should avoid a unilateral postponement of elections due in November, which could trigger a violent backlash.
Until it was wiped out, smallpox had plagued humanity for at least 3000 years, killing 300 million people in the 20th century alone. Its eradication stands as the greatest public health triumph in history. As the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, humanity’s victory over smallpox is a reminder of what is possible when nations come together to fight a common health threat.
Protecting food supply chains is the key missing component of an effective COVID-19 strategy. Global partnerships – particularly among the private sector, governments, development banks, and farmers’ organizations – must be established rapidly to prevent a catastrophic food crisis in developing countries.
La Banque africaine de développement mobilise des moyens d’une ampleur exceptionnelle pour atténuer les conséquences de la pandémie du Coronavirus (Covid-19) sur les économies africaines. Selon les estimations de la Banque, la pandémie pourrait entrainer une baisse du produit intérieur brut (PIB) africain de l’ordre de 22,1 à 88 milliards. Les conséquences du Covid-19 pourraient provoquer une contraction du PIB africain de 0,7 à 2,8 points de pourcentage en 2020, ajoutent les prévisions de la Banque.
COVID-19 continues to have a far-reaching effect on people’s lives, families, and communities as well as on the global economy. Amid the bleak economic reality, companies in response are focused on driving a dual agenda: protecting lives and livelihoods. As the crisis continues to upend lives, companies are struggling to understand its full impact on their businesses and how best to respond. According to our recent B2B Decision Maker Pulse survey, about a quarter of companies surveyed say they are redirecting and increasing spend toward emerging opportunities.
COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. Everything has been impacted. How we live and interact with each other, how we work and communicate, how we move around and travel. Every aspect of our lives has been affected. Although the world is in lockdown, governments, epidemiologists, school principals, entrepreneurs and families around the world are already planning the next steps: how to safely reopen schools and businesses, how to commute and travel without transmitting or contracting infection, how to support those most affected by the crisis – the millions who have lost their livelihoods or their loved ones, how to ensure the already serious inequalities don’t deteriorate further.
It has been less than two months since the world scrambled to go into the “Great Lockdown” to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, many countries are considering their exit strategies. Some have already eased up.
Recent weeks have seen a number of estimates of how the coronavirus pandemic has affected CO2 emissions in China, the UK, Europe and the world as a whole in 2020. But a key question for climate change is what impact this has had on the overall amount of CO2 in the atmosphere – the principal driver of global temperature rise. In our analysis for Carbon Brief, we assess whether the global drop in emissions will have a noticeable impact on atmospheric CO2 concentrations this year.
A generous reading of the recently convened meetings of the IMF and World Bank, and the associated meetings of the G7 and G20, is that everyone recognized the unprecedented nature of COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences for development and poverty: the international financial institutions (IFIs) took encouraging steps to increase their financial contribution and the G20 managed to agree on a useful, if limited, debt standstill for the poorest countries.
COVID-19 has continued to spread in countries in the region. As more countries continue to strengthen their testing capabilities, more cases have been recorded. Since the last situational update on 28 April 2020, the region has reported a total of 13,739 cases (an increase of 4,148 new cases). While Comoros had not recorded any COVID-19 case for a long period of time, a first case was recorded on 30 April 2020.
Scientists created a monoclonal antibody that can defeat the new coronavirus in the lab, an early but promising step in efforts to find treatments and curb the pandemic’s spread. The experimental antibody has neutralized the virus in cell cultures. While that’s early in the drug development process -- before animal research and human trials -- the antibody may help prevent or treat Covid-19 and related diseases in the future, either alone or in a drug combination, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Communications.
Kenya has been cleared to take part in the trials of a Covid-19 drug approved for use in the US. The Ministry of Health will use the drug on a small number of patients. Remdesivir was approved by the Food and Drug Authority in the US for emergency use. Health director general Patrick Amoth on Monday said the World Health Organization had approved Kenya to join the trials.
In the context of the ongoing outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), the global public health threat posed by COVID-19 is high, with more than 3,635,934 reported cases worldwide. On 4 May the Algerian Ministry of Health announced 4,648 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 465 deaths, in Algeria. In that respect, the Government of Algeria has implemented various measures with a view to limiting the spread of COVID-19.
The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes innovations around the world including repurposing drugs, traditional medicines and developing new therapies in the search for potential treatments for COVID-19. WHO recognizes that traditional, complementary and alternative medicine has many benefits and Africa has a long history of traditional medicine and practitioners that play an important role in providing care to populations.
Many African countries moved rapidly to curb the initial spread of coronavirus, but they have been slower to cushion their citizens from its economic impact. Taking advantage of the lag before cases appeared on the continent, the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention began ramping up their testing capacity in February, and by March many countries required foreign travellers to self-quarantine upon arrival.
The reality of the COVID-19 pandemic presents a number of unforeseen and far-reaching implications on markets and economies across the globe - Africa is no different. From a PE/VC fund perspective, the pandemic has had an immediate impact as funds face a drop in valuations and NAV numbers.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a challenge for companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange which have had to postpone general meetings (GMs) due to the ban on public gatherings in Kenya. This has meant that listed companies cannot hold physical GMs as they have done traditionally.
The spread of COVID-19 has transformed many of the world’s great cities into tragic household names as their reported cases and deaths rise: Wuhan, Milan, Madrid, New York City, and more. But as the pandemic continues in the weeks and months to come, those relatively affluent cities will be joined by others with far more challenging conditions.
For the hundreds of millions of children living through conflict or in some of the world’s most fragile places, limited access to essential services has become a sad daily reality. UNICEF was already working to improve healthcare, water and sanitation, access to learning and protection services for children struggling just to survive. But the COVID-19 pandemic presents yet another challenge to already battered and desperately overburdened health, education and social protection systems.
In 34 of Sub-Saharan Africa’s 45 countries, annual per capita health spending is below $200, and measures like lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and even frequent handwashing to combat COVID-19 are nearly impossible to implement. This simple fact underscores the urgent need for the Global Health Pledging Conference on May 4.
Economic projections around the impact of the coronavirus outbreak remain uncertain. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s base case is built on a series of epidemiological assumptions regarding the virus. We believe that about 50% of the world’s population will be infected, that 20% of symptomatic cases will be severe and that about 1% (possibly less) of symptomatic cases will prove fatal. We expect governments to lift lockdowns gradually once the number of cases declines and there is sufficient spare capacity in healthcare systems.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the world has been drifting towards a perfect storm of financial, political, socioeconomic, and environmental risks, writes Nouriel Roubini. From massive increases in fiscal deficits as high as 10% of GDP or more to worsening relations between China and the US, here are 10 economic factors pointing to financial trouble ahead, according to the economist.
As businesses around the world consider how they can return from the torment inflicted by the coronavirus, Brazil’s journey from failure to triumph provides food for thought. In a previous article, McKinsey described five qualities that will be critical for business leaders to find their way to the next normal: resolve, resilience, return, reimagination, and reform.
This report sets out the framework for the United Nations’ urgent socio-economic support to countries and societies in the face of COVID-19, putting in practice the UN Secretary-General’s Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity report on the same subject.
Using the fast-track approach developed in April, the World Bank is currently assisting 93 countries with COVID-related health projects, with support in another 18 countries expected shortly. The broad support efforts can be viewed on this interactive map of our ongoing COVID-19 projects.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is currently causing a significant adverse impact on the global economy with governments around the world implementing various fiscal measures to mitigate its effects and provide relief for businesses and households. Within Africa, the impacts of COVID-19 are being felt in different ways and the measures taken by the respective governments have also differed on the areas of focus and comprehensiveness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen countries across the Common Market for Eastern Africa implemented new trade regulations, restricting the movement of some goods and services to curb the spread of the virus. Sandra Uwera, CEO, COMESA Business Council joins CNBC Africa to discuss how best this can be done to minimize losses.
Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible.
Chapter 1 argues that fiscal policies are at the forefront of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 2 argues that fiscal policies are at the forefront of facilitating an economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic once the Great Lockdown ends. Chapter 3 discusses what governments can do to get the most out of state-owned enterprises.
The next time you react when your six-foot perimeter is violated at a grocery store or on the sidewalk, imagine how much worse it could be. For hundreds of millions of people who live in unplanned settlements, slums, and refugee camps around the world, anything approaching social distancing is a cruel impossibility.
As we lock ourselves down to contain the spread of COVID-19, it is tempting to think that the solutions to the pandemic lie at a national level, writes Minouche Shafik (LSE Director). But although it will probably stall world trade, the virus respects no borders. International co-operation, woefully inadequate so far, will be vital if the pandemic is not to re-emerge.
Since the first African coronavirus case was confirmed on February 14 when a Chinese national was diagnosed in Egypt, the virus has spread to virtually all corners of the continent. Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder whose charitable foundation is focused on the pandemic, has warned that, if left unchecked in a region of crowded slums and flimsy health systems, the disease could claim a horrifying 10m African lives.
We can reopen the economy again if we do a few things right, including testing and contact tracing. We need to test all people with symptoms and their contacts, which means at most 3% of our tests should turn out positive. We need to identify as many infected as possible, and 70% to 90% of their contacts, to isolate or quarantine them. If we do all of that really fast (within a day or so), it might be enough to control the epidemic. We should hire lots of people to do that, and also use technology.
The global community is racing to slow down and eventually halt the spread of COVID-19, a pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and sickened tens of thousands of others. In Africa, the virus has spread to dozens of countries within weeks. Governments and health authorities across the continent are striving to limit widespread infections.
His TED talk in 2015 warned of the cost of a pandemic and then set out a public health response needed to fight it – a blueprint for today’s emergency. During our – virtual – conversation, the words never cross his lips.
Any country can follow a series of measures that are very cheap and can dramatically reduce the epidemic: mandate wearing home-made masks, apply physical distancing and hygiene everywhere, and educate the public
The coronavirus pandemic pits all of humanity against the virus. The damage to health, wealth, and well-being has already been enormous. This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side. Everyone can work together to learn about the disease and develop tools to fight it. I see global innovation as the key to limiting the damage.
The Tax Amendment Bill, 2020 (the Tax Bill) seeks to amend a number of laws to (amongst other things) address and mitigate the effects of the current COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya. The pandemic has caused widespread disruption to lives and businesses and we welcome Parliament’s initiative at introducing regulatory and legislative responses to address issues arising from the pandemic.
A news article published on 17th April on BBC that first got me angry for three reasons. First is that for so long, Africa has been portrayed as the dark continent by the west. Even when things aren’t as bad as they are in the west, Melinda Gates recently said that it would only take a matter of time before dead bodies from COVID-19 casualties line the streets of Africa if something drastic is not done to curb the spread of the virus.
Confirmed cases approach 2.5 million; several countries around world announce plans to ease social distancing and lockdown rules; challenges for vulnerable populations around the world; and what you need to know about "wet markets".
A month ago we sounded the alarm with Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now. After that, we asked countries to buy us time with Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance and looked in detail at the US situation with Coronavirus: Out of Many, One. Together, these articles have been viewed by over 60 million people and translated into over 40 languages.
The lockdowns triggered by COVID-19 are taking a disproportionate toll on women in the labour market, as the sectors with high rates of female employment are experiencing heavier job losses while increased childcare needs during school closures exert an outsized impact on working mothers.
The COVID-19 crisis sees humans act with unprecedented solidarity. Acts of kindness abound. By mid-April, it was estimated that a third of the global population was staying indoors to help stop the virus spread. The extraordinary efforts and self-sacrifice of medical services and essential workers humbles us.
My patient’s voice quivered as he told me about his wife. She had COVID-19 symptoms but was too afraid to go to the hospital. By the time paramedics came to his house for another family member who fell ill, he was wracked with worry. “Please check on my wife; I don’t know if she’s ok to be at home,” he told one paramedic.
Beyond the health impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are expecting a major global recession. Our estimates suggest a much deeper global downturn than the Great Recession, given the declines in production, investment, employment and trade.
In the present crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are a number of accessible historical works and websites that can provide background and information on the disease as it unfolds. Since the disease is so recently emergent, there are as yet no reliable books dedicated directly to the topic.
It’s no surprise that consumer spending in the U.S. fell off a cliff in March. That’s when bars, concert halls, movie theaters and other nonessential businesses across much of the country shuttered to try to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.
Many Kenyans will agree that the measures the government has put in place to restrict movement are justified to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and to prevent our fragile healthcare system from collapsing. We need to be mindful of the long-term impact of these measures, starting with the declaration of essential services.
With the COVID-19 pandemic threatening to overwhelm much of Africa, companies on the continent must broaden their perspective. Instead of focusing on short-term returns for owners and investors, they must consider the needs of a variety of stakeholders – employees, suppliers, customers, and the societies in which they operate.
COVID-19 is forcing cities around the world to face the reality that they're ill-prepared for emergencies. It’s time to reinvent the modern urban center with an eye toward fully equipped health systems and state-of-the-art digital infrastructure that incorporates unanticipated risks.
As the coronavirus pandemic impacts millions across the world and brings economies to a grinding halt, there is a lot of talk about how emissions from fossil fuel combustion have dropped radically in many countries. Yet this is no solution to air pollution and climate change.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread economic shocks across the world that have necessitated a significant shift not only in our day to day lives but in how businesses are operating and how businesses will continue to operate during the subsistence of the pandemic and in the aftermath. In view of the various constraints relating to the pandemic, businesses are concerned that their ability to comply in a timely manner with various statutory obligations may be impaired during this period.
The President of the Commonwealth Medical Association, Osahon Enabulele, says while citizens have endured their leaders' frequent recourse to overseas medical treatment in the past, they may not remain so tolerant if the coronavirus wreaks havoc as it has elsewhere in the world.
From a WhatsApp chatbot to a self-diagnosis tool, Africans are devising mobile tech solutions to contain the spread of the coronavirus amid fears it could have disastrous effects for the continent's most vulnerable.
When it comes to COVID-19, counting has been a challenge. Despite all the news articles and reports, we know very little about the incidence or prevalence of this new disease. Projections are based on models, and this uncertainty breeds fear. In my home city of New York and elsewhere, fear is on just about everyone’s mind.
These are very difficult days, as the world faces one of its worst challenges ever: the novel coronavirus pandemic. And it seems almost no nation is spared. As infection rates rise, so does panic across financial markets, as economies drastically slow down and supply chains are severely disrupted.
More than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now been reported to WHO, including more than 50,000 deaths. But we know that this is much more than a health crisis. We are all aware of the profound social and economic consequences of the pandemic.
Two independent research studies have shown the benefit of receiving infusions of blood from COVID-19 survivors.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll on the African continent. While the continent as a whole still accounts for relatively few deaths from the disease, the numbers are rising, with more than 4,700 confirmed cases and 127 deaths.
In recent decades, zoonotic diseases–those transferred from animals to humans–have gained international attention. Ebola, avian influenza (or bird flu), H1N1 flu virus (or swine flu), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Rift Valley fever, sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, the Zika virus–and now, the novel coronavirus COVID-19–have all either caused or threatened to cause major pandemics, with thousands of deaths and billions in economic losses.
COVID-19 (coronavirus) has arrived in Sub-Saharan Africa, and governments have stepped up measures to prevent the spread of this pandemic. Over the past weeks, travelers have been screened with thermal cameras and health agents have been deployed to increase surveillance, and countries have acted swiftly to cut down flights, close schools and borders, and limit public gatherings.
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is quickly changing the world, including how health data relating to a data subject is controlled and processed by governments and enterprises. With the number of COVID-19 cases well above 1 million, the well-being and economic future of most countries is uncertain.
The coronavirus has turned our world upside down. Countries, societies, families and individuals are affected in so many ways. In the midst of this global crisis we believe that this is also a time for innovation, for finding new and better ways to tackle our global challenges.
On March 17, GeoPoll released the results of their survey deployed to determine perceptions and understanding of COVID-19 in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria.
Around the world, life as we know it has changed drastically. Global leaders and millions of citizens are facing the challenge of a lifetime. The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening not only healthcare systems, but also the livelihoods of citizens and the stability of economies.
The COVID-19 pandemic is primarily a health crisis and a human tragedy, but it also has far-reaching economic ramifications. In Africa, it is already disrupting millions of people’s livelihoods, with disproportionate impact on poor households and small and informal businesses—and the pace of this disruption is likely to accelerate in the weeks ahead.
COVID-19 is, first and foremost, a global humanitarian challenge. Thousands of health professionals are heroically battling the virus, putting their own lives at risk. Governments and industry are working together to understand and address the challenge, support victims and their families and communities, and search for treatments and a vaccine.
The Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was published on 30 March 2020 (the Bill) to make amendments to tax related laws in Kenya including the Income Tax Act (CAP 470) , the Value Added Tax Act, 2013, the Miscellaneous Fees and Levies Act, 2015 and the Excise Duty Act, 2015. The National Assembly will on 8 April 2020 consider and vote on the Bill and forward it for assent to the President.
If ever a crisis should have forced world leaders to rethink their approach to existential challenges of global dimensions, the COVID-19 pandemic ought to have been that catalyst. However, the response of leaders across the world has been characterised by a patchwork of largely uncoordinated reactions, still based on the exigencies and machinations and commensurate limitations of nation-state dynamics.
The Law Society of Kenya, in furtherance to its statutory mandate to assist the government in the administration of justice and advance rule of law, proposes the following interventions to assist the country during this global pandemic with serious economic repercussions.
Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture.
Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society, saving millions of lives along the way. If we don’t take these measures, tens of millions will be infected, many will die, along with anybody else that requires intensive care, because the healthcare system will have collapsed.
Many people blame the coronavirus epidemic on globalization, and say that the only way to prevent more such outbreaks is to de-globalize the world. Build walls, restrict travel, reduce trade. However, while short-term quarantine is essential to stop epidemics, long-term isolationism will lead to economic collapse without offering any real protection against infectious diseases.
With everything that’s happening about the Coronavirus, it might be very hard to make a decision of what to do today. Should you wait for more information? Do something today? What?