Market Watch (May 22)
“Sweden’s policy of keeping schools, restaurants and businesses open while practising social distancing to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from spreading was seen as bold, but now it has now it has the highest deaths per capita in Europe from COVID-19.”
Tags: Businesses, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deaths, Europe, Pandemic, Prevent, Restaurants, Schools, Social distancing, Sweden
Bloomberg (May 19)
“Australia’s success in curbing Covid-19 infections is allowing it to slowly ease some restrictions even as it remains largely closed off from the rest of the world, taking its economy back to the pre-globalization era.” Stimulating domestic consumption prove essential “to drive any rebound,” but complicated by consumer worries. “Even before Covid-19, Australian households were among the most indebted in the developed world, with debt almost double disposable income.”
Tags: Australia, Closed off, Consumption, COVID-19, Developed world, Economy, Households, Indebted, Pre-globalization, Restrictions, Success
South China Morning Post (May 12)
In Hong Kong, the “coronavirus crisis is shaping the future of office space…. Net absorption of office space has fallen to an 18-year low…. In the long run, the Covid-19-induced trend towards flexible working arrangements will drive office decentralization.”
Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Crisis, Decentralization, Flexible working, Hong Kong, Net absorption, Office space, Trend
Reuters (April 13)
“China fears a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of COVID-19 and push the country back into a state of near paralysis.” Bordering Russia, China’s Heilongjiang province has become the new hotspot. On Sunday, “a total of 108 new coronavirus cases were reported…, up from 99 a day earlier and marking the highest number of cases since 143 infections were reported on March 5.”
US News & World Report (April 6)
The Covid-19 pandemic has “exposed gaping cracks in our social, political and economic systems. The most pervasive of those cracks is discrimination against women, which persists in every country in the world.” But the pandemic might also “be the watershed we need to upend the systems that hold girls and women back. It brings a chance to make health care and education truly universal, to improve conditions and pay for millions, and to strengthen safety nets.”
Tags: COVID-19, Cracks, Discrimination, Economic, Education, Health care, Pandemic, Social, Upend, Watershed, Women
The Economist (April 4)
“The unicorn reality check was under way before America declared a national state of emergency over covid-19 on March 13th. Venture capitalists reckoned that a third of American unicorns would thrive, a third would disappoint and a third would be taken over or die.” With the coronavirus acting as an accelerator, we might find out the fate for the 450 or so global unicorns more quickly than expected. “A shake-out looms.”
Tags: Accelerator, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Disappoint, Emergency, Reality check, Shake-out, Thrive, Unicorn, VCs
New York Times (March 29)
The Covid-19 crisis has awakened “a sleeping giant” in China. “How the ruling Communist Party manages the coming months will help shape how hundreds of millions of young people see its authoritarian political bargain for decades to come.” The “generational awakening… could match the defining effects of World War II” and it “could disrupt the social stability on which the Communist Party depends.”
Tags: Authoritarian, Awakened, CCP, China, COVID-19, Crisis, Disrupt, Sleeping giant, Social stability, WWII, Young
Korea Herald (March 15)
Despite COVID-19, AGMs will go on in South Korea. “A total of 314 South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and SK hynix, will hold shareholders meetings this week.” They are taking special “measures to counter concerns over potential spread of the coronavirus at the meetings.” For example, Samsung has moved the meeting from its headquarters to a convention hall and “asked shareholders to make extensive use of online voting” whereas SK hynix “will increase the distance between shareholders’ seats to 2 meters to minimize physical contact.”
Tags: AGMs, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Distance, Hyundai, Online voting, Physical contact, Samsung, Shareholders, SK hynix, South Korea
The Economist (March 14)
“All governments will struggle” with Covid19. “As they belatedly realise that health systems will buckle and deaths mount,” how well the governments and their leaders cope will be determined by “their attitude to uncertainty; the structure and competence of their health systems; and, above all, whether they are trusted.”
Tags: Attitude, Buckle, Competence, COVID-19, Deaths, Governments, Health systems, Struggle, Trust, Uncertainty
Financial Times (February 26)
“Panic spreads faster than a pandemic. That might not make it irrational.” The novel corona virus (Covid-19) has already “infected 10 times as many people as did Sars and killed more than three times as many people. China is a far bigger part of global production and consumption than was the case in 2003.” And if it is not contained, “the hit to global GDP will be even worse.”
Tags: China, Consumption, COVID-19, Irrational, Pandemic, Panic, Production, SARS
