$ 8,800,000,000,000 is what Coronavirus could cost us!

COVID-19 Pandemic has come as an unprecedented time throughout the globe. The coronavirus has taken its toll on our lives as never seen and felt before. Coronavirus has attacked us socially, emotionally, physically and economically, becoming the biggest ever menace to the human society in the recent past. With no solution in hand the world was brought to a standstill and lockdown had to be imposed in almost the entire world.

Considering the economic impact that this pandemic has had on us, the Asian Development Bank has analysed a global loss of $8.8 trillion. This huge amount was stated in the Asian Development Outlook 2020 and is equivalent to approximately ten percent of the world economy.

ADB said “the world economy may shred somewhere between $5.8% trillion to $8.8 trillion. Considering the global GDP which is 6.4% to 9.7%, the analysis is a gigantic proportion in itself. Initially it was estimated that the economic loss because of the pandemic will be $4.1 trillion but with the world still struggling to contain the spread of the virus and continuous extension of lockdown happening across the world the figures has been revised. Further, the estimated value by ADB has a range which was arrived upon by considering 2 cases of containment duration the upper limit being for 6-month duration.

Moreover, the Asian Pacific region, is likely to result a loss of $2.5 trillion in the next 6 months containment. This can be attributed to the lockdown in countries such as Pakistan, India, and majorly China. This will also result in increase in unemployment rate with nearly 242 million unemployed worldwide, of which the Asia Pacific region could see approximately 169 million unemployed.

ADB Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada stated “the policy interventions can play to help mitigate damage to economies”. Policies which include measures of easing fiscal, monetary aspects and providing an uninterrupted support to loss of income may help in reducing the coronavirus impact. This reduction could be as much as 30 to 40 per cent. Looking at this we can hope for effective government policy intervention that may reduce the burden imposed by the pandemic, globally.