Worst collapse in 150 years
The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a "swift and massive shock" that has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy since 1870 despite unprecedented government support, the World Bank said Monday.
The world economy is expected to contract by 5.2 percent this year -- the worst recession in 80 years -- but the sheer number of countries suffering economic losses means the scale of the downturn is worse than any recession in 150 years, the World Bank said in its latest Global Economic Prospects report.
"This is a deeply sobering outlook, with the crisis likely to leave long-lasting scars and pose major global challenges," said World Bank Group Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Ceyla Pazarbasioglu.
The depth of the crisis will drive 70 to 100 million people into extreme poverty -- worse than the prior estimate of 60 million, she told reporters.
And while the Washington-based development lender projects a rebound for 2021, there is a risk a second wave of outbreaks could undermine the recovery and turn the economic crisis into a financial one that will see a "wave of defaults."
China is nearly alone in seeing modest growth this year. However the World Bank warned the depth of the slowdown in the world's second-largest economy will hinder recovery prospects in developing nations, especially commodity exporters.
Though dramatic, the current forecast falls short of the Great Depression, which saw a global contraction of 14.5 percent from 1930 to 1932, while the post-war downturn in 1945-1946 was 13.8 percent, according to the World Bank.
But because of the pandemic there remain some "exceptionally high" risks to the outlook, particularly if the disease lingers and authorities have to reimpose restrictions -- which could make the downturn as bad as eight percent.
Meanwhile, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, the coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year.
The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, asked about the research at a daily press briefing on Tuesday, dismissed the findings. "I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume," she said.
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