(June 25 – July 8, 2020)
Six months have passed since the first cluster of “pneumonia of unknown cause” (later named COVID-19) cases were registered in Wuhan province, China, on December 31, 2019. Since then, the novel coronavirus has spread across 188 countries and territories, infecting 11.8 million people, resulting in almost 545,000 deaths and 6.4 million recoveries. Many more are expected to be impacted by the economic crisis caused by the anti-corona measures implemented by governments.
In late June, the World Health Organisation (WHO) drew the line under a summary of the facts currently known about COVID-19 and advised governments of five key measures to be taken:
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- Empower people to protect themselves through physical distancing and other public health measures and also through the sharing of reliable information about COVID-19
- Continue to work to suppress virus transmission, ensuring the tracing and quarantining of contacts
- Prioritize early identification and clinical care, paying particular attention to high-risk groups such as the elderly and those living in long-term care facilities
- Accelerate research, as there is still much to learn about the new coronavirus
- Political leadership and global solidarity
“We’re all in this together, and we’re all in this for the long haul. […] The critical question that all countries will face in the coming months is how to live with this virus. That is the new normal.” WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“New” tourism?
Summer moves on in the Northern hemisphere and millions of tourists are restless and eager to enjoy their annual vacations. The European Union has recommended the bloc opens its external borders to 15 countries from July 1st. These are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and China (although China is subject to confirmation of reciprocity), according to Euronews. At the same time, each country in Europe is imposing its own rules and its own timetable for the re-opening of its borders.
Turkey has announced that it has officially reopened for tourism although the Turkish Government has decided to impose certain rules to all arriving tourists – including mandatory face-masks in public spaces. There will, however, be no mandatory testing for travelers unless COVID-19 symptoms occur.
At the same time, in a different part of the world, the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), which rely heavily on income from the tourism sector, have been hit the hardest. Latest research and data provided by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) suggests that tourism accounts for more than 30% of total exports in the majority of the 38 SIDS. This proportion is as high as 90% in some of these states which raises their vulnerability to falling tourist numbers to critical levels. Since there is no certainty of when the SIDS borders will re-open to tourists, governments have been advised to take better advantage of their vast ocean resources and blue economy to accelerate sustainable development. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has published a report that underlines the necessity of fostering development by strengthening the fisheries sector (as well as tourism) in these fragile economies.
Another UN body – UNCTAD – the Conference on Trade and Development – has published a report revealing that the world’s tourism sector could lose at least $1.2 trillion, or 1.5% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), in 2020. This may be the result of the sector having been at a standstill for nearly four months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The UNCTAD director of international trade, Ms. Coke-Hamilton, has said that the effects of the coronavirus on the tourism sector could be particularly negative for women who are expected to be disproportionately affected by lay-offs.
A report published by UNCTAD suggests that women are more likely than men to be entrepreneurs in tourism and account for about 54% of the workforce in the accommodation and food services sectors. Furthermore, because many women in the sector work informally in low-skilled jobs, they are less likely to receive unemployment benefits or have access to other safety nets.
“This is why women are particularly hard hit in this crisis. And this is why policies that help protect the sector also protect the economic empowerment that many of these women have long fought for,” Ms. Coke-Hamilton said.
Exceeding all peaks since the Great Depression
Remember the 2008 financial crisis? The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be turning into a jobs crisis far worse than the one experienced then. Hit hardest are women, young people and workers on low incomes. The OECD unemployment rate edged down to 8.4% in May 2020, after an unprecedented increase of 3.0 percentage points in April to 8.5%, the highest unemployment rate in a decade, according to a new OECD report and unemployment statistics.
The number of unemployed people in the OECD area stood at 54.5 million in May.
The OECD-wide unemployment rate may reach 9.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020, exceeding every peak since the Great Depression.
In a recent article published on DevelopmentAid, Thomas Jacobs, the IFC Country Manager for Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand can be seen to believe likewise. The official has stated that the global economy is poised to witness the deepest global recession since World War II.
“Across the East Asia and Pacific region, private sector firms have been affected by cuts to revenue and access to capital, including foreign direct investment, at the same time as having to manage the need to pay employees, cover basic expenses and service debt” said Jacobs.
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About COVID-2019 Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in many different species of animals including camels, cattle, cats and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between them such as was the case with MERS (2012) and SARS (2003).The symptoms of the virus are very similar to those of a common cold – runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever, a general feeling of being unwell. Blood tests are necessary in order to prove the presence of the virus in the organism. Named by scientists as the “Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus”, COVID-19 is a coronavirus, like MERS and SARs, all of which have their origins in bats. Initial reports show that, in the early stages of the outbreak (early January 2020), many of those infected in Wuhan had some link to a large seafood and live animal market – the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, mainly its western wing where wildlife animals are traded. This suggests that the virus initially affected an animal and subsequently spread to a person in a what a CDC has called “the species barrier jump”.
