US COVID cases have finally breached 1,000 cases, which is a 600% increase from a week ago. We think the cases could easily reach 50,000 cases if the US ends up following the Korea path. We discuss this and the explosion in searches for “hand sanitizer” in our latest COVID tracker.
On the subject of pandemics, our featured Deep Dive this week is on an excellent 2007 paper which reviewed the best measures to slow pandemics during the 1918 Spanish flu. Turns out early and layered interventions (no public gatherings, quarantines, school closures) make a huge difference.
Also, central banks continue to act to stabilise markets. Today, it was the Bank of England cutting rates and tomorrow it will likely be the ECB. Former DB economist, Caroline Grady, writes on the ECB’s possible options. But we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that rate cuts can slow a pandemic – this may be one crisis where central banks cannot bail out markets.
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