The European Union's finance ministers have reached a deal on a 540 billion-euro rescue plan to support the continent's coronavirus-stricken economies.

Stephen M. Walt(Professor of international relations at Harvard University): The pandemic will strengthen the state and reinforce nationalism. Governments of all types will adopt emergency measures to manage the crisis, and many will be loath to relinquish these new powers when the crisis is over. COVID-19 will also accelerate the shift in power and influence from West to East.  South Korea and Singapore have responded best, and China has reacted well after its early mistakes.

Source: American Enterprise Institute (Authors: Scott Gottlieb, Mark McClellan, Lauren Silvis, Caitlin Rivers and Crystal Watson).

The jobs of at least 1,110,107 Europeans working in auto manufacturing are affected by factory shutdowns, as a result of the current crisis. This is out of a total of 2,6 million direct manufacturing jobs in the EU auto industry.

Note: (in parenthesis motor vehicles production lost)

Source: AECA

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: