Coronavirus and the World Economy
The coronavirus has arrived in the most remote place of the World and 209 countries and territories are affected. Namibia has now 16 cases and South Africa 1 845. China reported that the city of Wuhan lifted yesterday the restriction and the 11 million people are for the first time allowed to leave the city since the end of January or after 87 days. Namibia is in its 13th day of a total lockdown and overall the Nation is disciplined and adheres to the rules. The latest cases and deaths are the following:
Table 1: Coronavirus cases – 27 January – 9 April
| Region/Country | Cases27 Jan | Cases27 Feb | Cases26 Mar | Cases2 Apr | Cases9 Apr |
| China | 4 581 | 78 499 | 81 285 | 81 589 | 81 865 |
| Europe | – | 556 | 246 327 | 490 714 | 729 443 |
| Africa | 1 005 | 4 687 | 11 344 | ||
| North America | 74 | 89 478 | 256 160 | 454 598 | |
| Rest of the World | – | 2 495 | 53 322 | 117 280 | 242 192 |
| Total | 4 581 | 82 183 | 471 417 | 950 430 | 1 519 442 |
Source: worldometers.info
From the middle of March the epicentre of the coronavirus has shifted from China to Europe and currently 48.0% of all reported cases are in Europe and 69% of the total deaths. The US reported already 215 344 cases. Only 0.7% of the reported cases are on the African continent.
Table 2: Coronavirus deaths – 27 January – 9 April
| Region/Country | Deaths27 Jan | Deaths27 Feb | Deaths26 Mar | Deaths2 Apr | Deaths9 Apr | Death ratio as% of cases |
| China | 106 | 2 747 | 3 287 | 3 318 | 3 335 | 4.1% |
| Europe | – | 14 | 14 143 | 34 406 | 61 061 | 8.4% |
| Africa | 28 | 177 | 549 | 4.8% | ||
| North America[1] | – | 1 334 | 6 249 | 15 232 | 3.6% | |
| Rest of the World | – | 43 | 2 503 | 4 126 | 7 810 | 3.2% |
| Total | 106 | 2 804 | 21 295 | 48 276 | 88 536 | 5.8% |
Source: worldometers.info
If the current trend continues the total number of deaths will be around 130 000 in a weeks’ time. The USA, Spain, Italy, France and the UK have today 73.7% of the number of deaths reported in the whole World.
Africa was out of limelight in the beginning and Egypt reported the first cases. Slowly the coronavirus pandemic is reaching the African continent and all countries reported 4 687cases. How is the virus spreading in the SADC region? There are only 2 555 cases reported in the SADC region and 52 deaths.
[1] North America is Canada and the US
Table 3: Coronavirus cases and deaths in the SADC region – 2 – 9 April 2020
| SADC country | Cases2 Apr | Cases9 Apr | Deaths2 Apr | Deaths9 Apr |
| South Africa | 1 353 | 1 845 | 5 | 18 |
| Mauritius | 154 | 273 | 5 | 7 |
| DRC | 109 | 180 | 9 | 18 |
| Madagascar | 57 | 93 | – | – |
| Zambia | 36 | 39 | 1 | |
| Tanzania | 20 | 25 | 1 | |
| Angola | 7 | 19 | 2 | 2 |
| Mozambique | 10 | 17 | – | |
| Namibia | 14 | 16 | – | |
| Eswatini | 9 | 12 | – | |
| Zimbabwe | 8 | 11 | 1 | 3 |
| Seychelles | 10 | 11 | – | |
| Botswana | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Malawi | – | 8 | – | 1 |
| Lesotho | – | – | – | – |
| Total | 1 791 | 2 555 | 23 | 52 |
Source: Worldometers.info
Each country of the World announced policies and regulations to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
Source: Compiled from Worldometers data
The graph above depicts the weekly change since beginning of February 2020 in the whole World of reported cases and deaths. There is light in the end of the tunnel, since 2 April a decline in the growth of cases and deaths occurred.
The real economic costs are spiralling and a World recession has become a reality, much worse than 2009. The World economy will move into a severe recession as the MSCI World Index (below) is signalling. The MSCI World Index consists of the stock exchange performance of 28 countries.
Source: MSCI Index
The MSCI index was at 2401 on 22 February 2020 and closed yesterday at 1895, a fall of 26.7%. Each country in the World is announcing stimulus packages and stock markets stabilized for now.
Table 4: Selected international commodity prices
| Commodity | Monthly | Yearly |
| Winners for Namibia | ||
| Energy: Brent oil | -10.00% | -52.56% |
| Gold | 0.31% | 26.75% |
| Uranium | 19.51% | 12.57% |
| Losers | ||
| Copper | -10.90% | -22.21% |
| Lead | -6.91% | -11.83% |
| Zinc | -2.83% | -33.07% |
Source: Trading economics. 2 April 2020
The N$ is currently trading 18.26 to the US Dollar and 19.8 to the Euro.
Compiled by: Rainer Ritter
9 April 2020