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i Newsletter Team Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro Dr. Saud Ahmed Khan Dr. Hassan Rasool Dr. Amena Urooj Dr. Ashan Ul Haq Satti Fahd Zulfiqar Fizzah Khalid Butt Design Team Muhammad Siddiq Qureshi Fizzah Khalid Butt ii Foreword Since its inception in 1957, the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) has been leading development policy research and debate in the country. Liberalization, protection, socioeconomic data collection and analysis, agriculture, and tax and policy are among areas that PIDE has either innovated or contributed. Quite responsibly, the PIDE went on a war footing to understand the impact of the outbreak, when COVID-19 pandemic hit us. We daily prepared research-based Bulletins, Blogs and Newsletters and updated a Dashboard for informing audiences at every level with analysis, ideas, news and statistics. We also created an online forum that met daily, bringing in a broad set of experts, business community and members of the civil society to understand the Corona crisis and develop an action plan in the light of the evolving situation. Many among us have been making video interviews on the Corona situation for digging up more useful information on what we at PIDE are referring to as the Corona War. The videos can be viewed at the PIDE’s YouTube channel. I am proud of the PIDE researchers who rose to the task and conducted research daily to keep us abreast on the many dimensions of the crisis. This eBook collects the newsletters we prepared during the first 6 weeks of the crisis. It gives a day by day breakdown of the events during the COVID-19 outbreak as it was happening. It will be very useful for those researchers looking for an in-depth study of how policy, society, and thought evolved with the spread of the pandemic. My thanks to Dr. Durre Nayab for diligently ensuring that the quality of the Bulletins and Blogs remained high. Our associate Aqeel Chaudhry developed a widely used Dashboard, that is giving us updated information twice a day. My heartfelt appreciation to the team that kept this steady stream of research going for six weeks to produce a daily PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter. The team included Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro, Dr. Saud Ahmed Khan, Dr. Hassan Rasool, Dr. Amena Urooj, Dr. Ashan Ul Haq Satti, Mr. Fahd Zulfiqar, Ms. Fizzah Khalid Butt and Mr. Siddiq Qureshi. We certainly hope that you, our audience, found what we did useful. Any suggestions and/or criticisms you have are more than welcome. And please remain engaged with PIDE—your think tank! Dr. Nadeem Ul Haque Vice Chancellor, PIDE iii CONTENTS 1. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 1 1 2. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 2 5 3. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 3 8 4. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 4 14 5. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 5 21 6. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 6 27 7. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 7 34 8. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 8 41 9. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 9 50 10. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 10 59 11. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 11 69 12. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 12 78 13. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 13 88 14. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 14 101 15. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 15 113 16. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 16 123 17. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 17 134 18. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 18 146 19. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 19 161 20. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 20 174 21. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 21 188 22. PIDE COVID-19 Newsletter – 22 201 iv PIDE COVID-19 NEWSLETTER March 21, 2020 No. 1 Global News Germany's strict no-debt (black zero) policy is at stake due to COVID-19 outbreak. Germany has high infection rates but few deaths. There are 17742 cases with the highest number of new cases i.e. 2422 on 20th March. Merkel expects that up to 70% of Germans might become infected with COVID-19. French police handed out over 4,000 fines on the first day of a nationwide lockdown. The European Central Bank launched a €750 billion ($820 billion) emergency bond purchase scheme. The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme should push down borrowing costs and help counter the economic slowdown in the bloc caused by the virus. Global Response China will provide the EU with 2 million surgical masks, 200,000 more specialized N95 respirator masks and 50,000 testing kits, said the head of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. India sets up task force to tackle economic impact from coronavirus. The task force will take continuous feedback and suggestions from the industry stakeholders. Aviation and hospitality industry have been hit the hardest by coronavirus. It is estimated that India's travel and hospitality industry is expected to take a revenue hit of around INR 8500 Cr due to the suspension of travel plans in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Local News Friday's death of a 77-year old man brings the total number of deaths in Pakistan to three. The country has 447 COVID-19 infected patients with 11 new cases reported on 20th March, 2020. PKR 1.3 trillion damage is expected due to COVID-19 outbreak in Pakistan. Local Response The citizens of Karachi are advised to self-isolate and stay home for coming three days. PM to personally look after the developments on COVID-19 on daily basis. 1 The segregated prevalence of COVID-19 in Pakistan is presented in chart 1. About 55% of cases in Sindh and only one case has been reported in AJK. Three deaths, two in KP and one in Sindh have been stated so far. Five recovered cases have also been reported. According to medical experts, every Virus has bell shape life cycle, if confined the infection rate decreases to zero; COVID-19 is not an exception. Almost all the infected have travelling history, local spread of infection is minimal till now, timely social distancing strategy seems paying off. Chart.1.COVID-19 Prevalence in Pakistan Islamabad Gilgit-Baltistan Azad Kashmir Balochistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sindh Punjab 0 50 100 150 200 250 Active Cases Recoveries Deaths Cases Report First case was reported on 27th February 2020, the figure remained single digit for about 10 days and reported initially within few areas then start increasing rapidly. The count increases exponentially after mid-March 2020. Chart.2 presents the cumulative cases of infected persons. 2 Chart 2. Increase of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan 456 307 237 136 53 20 22 28 31 2 4 5 5 7 16 19 6-Mar-20 1-Mar-20 2-Mar-20 3-Mar-20 4-Mar-20 5-Mar-20 7-Mar-20 8-Mar-20 9-Mar-20 28-Feb-20 26-Feb-20 27-Feb-20 29-Feb-20 13-Mar-20 11-Mar-20 12-Mar-20 14-Mar-20 15-Mar-20 16-Mar-20 17-Mar-20 18-Mar-20 19-Mar-20 10-Mar-20 Highest cases (134) reported on 16th March 2020, two deaths were reported on 18th March 2020 in KP and one death is reported on 20th March 2020 in Sindh. (See Chart 3). Chart 3. COVID-19-cases and deaths in Pakistan for three months 156 115 54 23 10 7 9 2 2 1 1 4 1 27 1 4 7 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Feb Mar 2020 Chart.4 presents the top ten up to date COVID-19 spread in the whole world. So far a total of 177 countries have confirmed cases of COVID-19 with China having maximum number of cases i.e 80967 with 2136 number of deaths. However, Italy has reported most number of deaths i.e. 2498 with a total 41035 registered affected cases. 3 Covid -19: World's most affected/ case reported countires 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 China Italy Iran Spain Germany USA France S. Korea Switzerland UK Netherlands Austria Belgium Norway Sweden Denmark Cases Recovered Critical Deaths Expert’s Advice: The State Bank of Pakistan needs to figure out the possibility of an advice to the banks for forgiving late payments and suspending penalties. Expert’s Opinion: Future in the Making Eichengreen, who specializes in economic history and is the author of more than a dozen books, including a highly regarded 'History of the Great Depression', said that he is working on the assumption that consumer spending will fall about thirty percent in the second quarter of 2020 which would be unprecedented. 4 PIDE COVID-19 NEWSLETTER March 22, 2020 NL2 No. 2 Global News COVID-19 case count jumps to more than 277,000 with more than 11000 deaths. No new coronavirus cases in Wuhan for third straight day. Medical device manufacturing is highly regulated, depends on proprietary global supply chains, and requires significant expertise to ramp up and run. The US State Department announced to provide one million dollars to Pakistan to help fight coronavirus. According to the World Food Program about 300 million children who depend on school meals are missing out due to closures triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. 75 million Americans under virtual lockdown as restrictions tighten. Starbucks will close its cafes in the United States in response to the coronavirus crisis, though it will remain open for delivery and drive- through customers. Global Response Jordan blows sirens for start of nationwide curfew for indefinite period. It has 85 reported cases; the decision came after identification of 16 new cases yesterday. US President Donald Trump said that he would invoke the Defense Production Act of 1950 to boost manufacturing of critical medical supplies.
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