GERMANY

COVID-19 is spreading fast in multiple states in America, and has already resulted in 7,500 deaths and the U.S. government's response has fallen far short of the efforts even in much smaller countries like the U.K. or South Korea.

It would have been quite difficult to stop this from happening but not impossible. President Trump is responsible for the agencies in charge of disease control in the U.S., and he has utterly botched it.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank have come up with a ballpark idea of global lockdown lifts. They rely on what’s been seen in China, where daily life is returning to normal, even if the economy is still showing a strain.

By: Peter S. Goodman, New York Times

The world is almost certainly ensnared in a devastating recession delivered by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, fears are growing that the downturn could be far more punishing and long lasting than initially feared potentially enduring into next year, and even beyond as governments intensify restrictions on business to halt the spread of the pandemic, and as fear of the virus reconfigures the very concept of public space, impeding consumer-led economic growth.

COD-VID 19 VOCABULORY

Authors: Carsten Brzeski, Chief Economist, Eurozone and Global Head of Macro for ING Research and Robert Carnell, Regional Head of Research, Asia-Pacific,

Pre-conditions for an end to the lockdown

In general, before any government removes emergency measures, we would anticipate seeing the following criteria:

The appointment of a European Commission First- Vice President for Health should be top of the EU’s to-do list post COVID-19. The elevation of the Health Commissioner position would ensure effective coordination and leadership at high level.

The regulatory role of the EU is indispensable to protect public health and patient safety, and is embedded in the body of EU legislation and programmes overseen by the European Medicines Agency, European Food Safety Agency, European Chemicals Agency and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

As of 2 April 2020

Reported Cases (in parenthesis number of deaths)

1. The Citizen Network, www.activecitizenship.net
2. Association of the European Self-Care Industry (AESGP), www.asgp.eu
3. All Can-Changing Cancer-Care Together, www.all-can.org
4. European Research Infrastructure for Biobanking (BBMRI-ERIC), www.bbmri-eric.eu
5. BioMed Alliance, www.biomedeurope.org

Source: Joan Costa-Font is associate professor (reader) in the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics.

A key lesson from the COVIS-19 crisis should be that the collaboration and collective action required in Europe to meet these challenges cannot be achieved without transferring powers to a European public-health authority.

To defeat an epidemic, people need to trust scientific experts, citizens need to trust public authorities and countries need to trust each other.