By Parisha Malhotra
COVID
- 19 has affected everything and everyone around us. People have no other
choice than staying at their homes. But on the Brightside, nature is reviving.
From clean water in Venice to improved water quality in Yamuna and Ganga, from
reduced levels of air pollution to the return of dolphins and swans to Italy,
nature has surely restored beautifully during this pandemic.
But
not to forget, there are several serious implications from COVID-19 on the
global economy. The COVID-19 outbreak has infected
more than 25 lakh people worldwide, on 21 April. Its spread has left businesses
around the world counting huge costs. The world’s biggest companies have begun
talking of broken supply chains, interrupted manufacturing, hollow stores and
flagging demand for their wares. The stock-market plunge this week was the steepest since the financial
crisis. Investors fear that the outbreak will deteriorate the economic
growth and government action may not be enough to control the decline.
There may be a cut in the planned investments and even start
laying off workers. In the
United States itself, the number of people remaining unemployed recorded a high
number signalling an end to a decade of expansion of the world's largest
economies. A major vulnerability for businesses in the United States and Europe
is their snowballing reliance on China as a supplier and customer over the last
10 or 20 years. At the same time, Chinese consumers are buying less.
Apple said the closing of stores in China would depress sales of iPhones and
other devices. Mastercard cut its growth forecast in part because
people are taking fewer international trips. Appetite for new bonds, especially
those issued by less-creditworthy businesses, has fallen off.
To prevent the pandemic, governments of different countries have
decided to shut down. In India, the shutdown has been implemented in the entire
country and is being referred to as an 'unprecedented gamble ', no one knows
for sure what the future beholds. On the other hand, there is a partial shutdown
in the US. These are just a few examples. The impact of lockdown will only
worsen the longer it lasts. But it can be witnessed that the governments have
no other choice but to implement the lockdown stringently to prevent the
outbreak from spreading. There exists a paradox.
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