- New Cases: 60,558 (⬆︎ 0.77%)
- New Deaths: 910 (⬆︎ 0.42%)
And here comes the bad news because of a 2nd wave.
Europe’s Economic Recovery Is a Summer Memory
As the coronavirus resumes spreading rapidly across the continent, hopes for an economic revival have given way to diminished expectations.
LONDON — What faint hopes remained that Europe was recovering from the economic catastrophe delivered by the pandemic have disappeared as the lethal virus has resumed spreading rapidly across much of the continent.
After sharply expanding in the early part of the summer, Britain’s economy grew far less than anticipated in August — just 2.1 percent compared with July, the government reported on Friday, adding to worries that further weakness lies ahead.
Earlier in the week, France, Europe’s second-largest economy, downgraded its forecast for the pace of expansion for the last three months of the year from an already minimal 1 percent to zero. Over all, the national statistics agency predicted the economy would contract by 9 percent this year.
The diminished expectations are a direct outgrowth of alarm over the revival of the virus. France reported nearly 19,000 new cases on Wednesday — a one-day record, and almost double the number the day before. The surge prompted President Emmanuel Macron to announce new restrictions, including a two-month shutdown of cafes and bars in Paris and surrounding areas.
In Spain, the central bank governor warned this week that the accelerating spread of the virus could force the government to impose restrictions that would produce an economic contraction of as much as 12.6 percent this year.
The European Central Bank’s chief economist cautioned on Tuesday that the 19 countries that share the euro currency might not recover from the disaster until 2022, with those that are dependent on tourism especially vulnerable.
Summer increasingly feels like a long time ago.
The piece goes on glumly counting the ways Europe is looking forward to more economic trouble, which bodes ill for us as we bungle our way thru this mess as well.
But there's a kind of left-handed good news here. Because the pandemic has forced us into creating an artificial downturn (kinda like putting a COVID patient into an induced coma), there's a built-in (and potentially explosive) recovery waiting for us on the other side.
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