The COVID-19 pandemic is now a major global health threat that the world has witnessed in modern times and the biggest crisis since World War II. With more than 2 million cases out of which 137,020 have died, this pandemic has wreaked havoc like no other in the world.
Across more than 108 countries, over 4 billion people all over the world are at home to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That's equivalent to half of the world's population.
As per a study published by Imperial college of London, in the absence of interventions, Coronavirus would have resulted in 7 billion infections and 40 million deaths globally.
As per the Imperial college study, mitigation strategies which focuses on shielding elderly and slowing but not interrupting transmission could reduce death burden by half, saving 20 million lives, but the study predicts that health systems in all countries will be quickly overwhelmed in this scenario.
As per the study, if suppression strategy is implemented early and sustained, then 38.7 million lives could be saved. While if it is initiated when death numbers shoot up, then only 30.7 million lives could be saved. Delays in implementing strategies to suppress transmission will lead to worse outcomes and fewer lives saved.
As per JP Morgan, the global economy will witness a loss of output worth at least $5.5 trillion over the next two years. This figure is bigger than the economy of Japan.
Facing an economic maelstrom, global economies have begun to deliver a robust fiscal response to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Nations across the world have come up with a mixture of tax incentives, loan guarantees, wage subsidies in order to shield their citizens as well as its enterprises from the devastating effects of the pandemic. Across the world, countries have spent more than $3.2 trillion on relief packages to fight coronavirus till March 20, 2020.