The Economist The politics of pandemics

From: The Economist this week - Thursday Mar 12, 2020 05:41 pm


	March 12th 2020	Read in browser


	The Economist this week

	Highlights from the latest issue

This week’s issue is dominated by covid-19. The pandemic, as the World Health Organisation has officially declared it, is spreading fast, with almost 45,000 cases and nearly 1,500 deaths in 112 countries outside China. Our cover leader looks at how politicians are belatedly realising that, as health systems buckle and deaths mount, they will have to weather the storm. We examine how America, despite its wealth and the excellence of its medical science, has squandered its chance to prepare for the pandemic, and how China’s president, Xi Jinping, celebrated a precipitous fall in cases with a victory lap in Wuhan, where the disease first took hold. As markets tumble we explore the parallels with the financial crisis of 2007-09, the vulnerability of credit markets to a downturn and how past pandemics have scarred economies. We stress-test Britain’s National Health Service. We analyse Iran’s failure to contain the virus. We evaluate the quarantines in Italy, South Korea and China, and their feasibility in other countries. And we devote three pages to a portrait of the virus behind it all, SARS-CoV-2, and the drugs that might one day bring it to heel.

To read these stories visit economist.com/coronavirus, which features all of our coverage of the virus and its consequences. And look out for a special edition of this newsletter on Saturday.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-In-Chief


	Editor’s picks

	Must-reads from the current edition

Russia
The prisoner in the Kremlin

Why Vladimir Putin cannot bring himself to leave office

Europe

Oil prices
Scorched earth

No one wins from the oil-price war that Saudi Arabia has unleashed

Finance and economics

Banking
The house that Jamie built

Under Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase has become the world’s most admired bank. Is his work done?

Briefing

Chaguan
When nationalism bites back

A proposal to help a few skilled foreigners settle in China triggers a furore

China

Latin America
How to reform Chile

A new constitution offers a path out of anger and disorder

The Americas

Myanmar’s army
Making war and law

The generals block reforms that would have reduced their political power

Asia

Atomic energy
Fun-sized fission

Nuclear power plants are coming to a battlefield near you

Science and Technology


	The world this week

	Rishi Sunak, Britain’s new chancellor of the exchequer, had been expected to increase borrowing. But the scale of fiscal loosening in the government’s budget was still surprising. A package of measures tallied up to a £30bn ($38bn) splurge, almost half of it for the emergency response to covid-19. The National Health Service will benefit the most, but a reserve fund for businesses and workers will also help with the economic hit the virus will cause.

	More from politics this week

	The aviation industry is being battered by the covid-19 outbreak. Boeing lost a fifth of its market value in a day amid reports that it would soon use the remainder of a $13.8bn loan it had only recently secured. Korean Air, which has cancelled 80% of its international flights, said that prolonged disruption threatened its survival. The suspension of many flights, and a general reluctance to travel, has already led to a collapse in bookings, which will be compounded by America’s ban on flights from Europe. Chinese airlines have been the worst affected. Chinese passenger numbers tumbled by 85% in February compared with February 2019.

	More from business this week

See full edition


	In case you missed it

	One of our most popular stories from the past seven days

Sanitary cordons
New trade barriers could hamper the supply of masks and medicines

Common-sense curbs to deal with covid-19? They may be costly


	From Economist Radio

Podcast
How might covid-19 be contained?

Our science editor explains the genetic make-up of the virus, scientists outline their attempts to thwart the outbreak and we turn data on the fatality rate of covid-19 into sound

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The Economist The politics of pandemics