The Economist A special edition on the coronavirus pandemic

From: The Economist this week - Saturday May 23, 2020 11:11 am


	May 23rd 2020	Read in browser


	The Economist this week

	Our coverage of the new coronavirus

Welcome to the newsletter highlighting The Economist’s best pandemic coverage. Our cover this week calls for a global effort to tackle climate change. Covid-19 creates a unique chance to steer the economy away from carbon. Low energy prices make it easier to cut subsidies and introduce a carbon tax. Oil and gas firms, steel producers and carmakers are already going through the agony of shrinking. Getting economies back on their feet requires climate-friendly investment that, thanks to low interest rates, will be more affordable. The world should seize the moment.

Our coverage of the disease this week features pieces which together suggest that blanket lockdowns need to be radically refined. In our Science & technology section we describe how the risk of severe covid-19 is not uniform across the population, and analyse how social distancing should be fine-tuned accordingly. Our International section explains how, the longer lockdowns continue in developing countries, the likelier it is that they will cost more lives than they save. We also look at how successfully models have predicted the course of the disease in the United States and at a rare condition in children infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Last, we report on the marginalisation of America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and on how Russia may be concealing the scale of its epidemic.

We also have a mortality tracker, which uses the gap between the total number of people who have died from any cause and the historical average for the time of year to estimate how many deaths from covid-19 the official statistics are failing to pick up.

We have been focusing on the pandemic in Economist radio and Economist films, too. This week our Money Talks podcast discusses the wave of bankruptcies expected as a result of covid-19.

The emergency phase of the pandemic is drawing to a close. I hope you find our coverage helps prepare you for the long haul that still lies ahead.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief


	Editor’s picks

	Must-reads from our recent coverage

Controlling covid-19
To each according to his need

The risk of severe coronavirus infections is not uniform. That calls for a fine-tuning of measures to stop the illness spreading

Science & technology

Covid-19 and global poverty
The great reversal

The number of poor people was steadily falling. Now it is rising fast

International

Forecasting covid-19
A terrible toll

Initial projections of America’s epidemic underestimated its severity

Graphic detail

Covid-19 in the young
Suffer the little children

Youngsters, too, are affected by SARS-CoV-2

Science & technology

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Handcuffing an institution

The White House has sidelined the world’s premier public-health agency

United States

Russia and covid-19
The anatomy of lies

Russia’s coronavirus outbreak is far worse than the government is letting on

Europe

Eye of the hurricane
Can businesses avoid going broke?

America and Europe face a wave of corporate bankruptcies as a result of covid-19. Will some businesses be able to restructure instead?

Economist Radio


	Subscriber event

Inside Story
Reporting on the pandemic

Subscribers are invited to a free webinar on The Economist’s coverage of covid-19. Our foreign correspondents reveal what it’s been like to report on the biggest story of recent times. May 28th 3pm BST / 10am EDT www.economist.com/webinar

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The Economist A special edition on the coronavirus pandemic