"Yes, traveling avoiding the toughest potholes without falling into your fears", sang the everlasting Battisti. Travel and economy they have always gone hand in hand, one stimulating the other and obtaining new impulses and reasons.
Covid-19 has succeeded in the arduous task of making them currently incompatible. Those who tried to reconcile them quickly found each other re-immersed in infections by the thousands. A risk that had to be taken, to try to save the summer tourism season. And to calibrate what can and cannot be done yet, and what must be prepared in view of the fall epidemic return.
That there will be, indeed if there will be: what is happening in the southern winter proves it. An easy prediction that it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll go back to the house (Melbourne, in its second - and most serious - lockdown in six months, will in all probability remain a case in itself), if we continue to behave responsibly.
La Spain, where the number of new infected has returned to the levels of the first half of May, becomes a good laboratory and example for others. And it's not even worth the extenuation of the greatest number of tests: pure as a percentage of swabs, new cases are high. Although nowhere near what they were at the beginning of the contagion. So, in a sense, it is good that such infections come to light immediately: it means that the monitoring is effective and prevents the virus from wandering around incognito.
As argued in the last Lancet, therefore, there is a recovery, but above all of the virus. In addition to Spain, also in France, Germany, UK and Italy, although in the first three much less than in the Hispanic case (a favorite holiday destination: every rose has its thorn) and in the country «do sole» much less than in all the other major European countries. Wise is Rafael Nadal to now set a good example, refraining from going to America to defend the title of US Open tennis champion.
By the way: in the USA the infections are finally coming down again, but from very high levels (stuff for an emerging country and in the winter season) and after harsh social restriction measures have finally been taken. A delayed outbreak, the cause of criminal confusion and heated political divisions; nor have they yet equipped themselves with an adequate national testing system to trace the contacts of the infected, given that in some states the results of the swabs are known after a week.
Returning to widen the gaze to the vast world, as already observed in the past on the Lancet, now the virus is now known and therefore carefully supervised and immediately treated, to prevent his charge from becoming mortal. Indeed, deaths remain low, in relation to the sick; low compared to the beginning of this ugly story, but still a few orders of magnitude higher than that of a normal flu.
All this, on the one hand, obliges to keep your guard up but, on the other hand, it allows you to leave the bridles to social behaviors do not pull like a few months ago. Playing with heel and toe on the restrictions, like when you had to start a car uphill not equipped with all of today's electronic devices: heel on the brake and tip on the accelerator.
And finally let's talk about the economy, albeit in the current circumstances The hands are inevitably also of the epidemic, given that primum vive deinde negotiare. In most economic systems the recovery is in progressalbeit in a very diverse way. And especially robust in Europe, where the recession was even stronger, while remains sluggish in the US. Even remains a mirage in Japan (e South Corea), due to the greater dependence on exports and on sectors particularly affected by the contraction in demand (durable consumer goods and capital goods).
We rely on qualitative information of the IHS Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) survey because they give us near real-time reactions from economies.
The "almost" is important, because the evolution of the pandemic is such that it can pay off obsolete the data collected only two weeks earlier (those PMI are taken in the second half of each month). This is precisely the case with the worsening of infections observed in recent days which are leading to new restrictive measures on social activities, which will have repercussions on the economy in August.
Le quantitative statistics, on the other hand, are useful to warn that high PMIs are not synonymous with a quick return to pre-crisis levels. In June, Italian industrial production, for example, remained 12% below the levels of the fourth quarter of 2019, despite the 53% recovery from the low in April. Or, the number of US employed: in the three months to July, 9,3 million jobs were recovered, but almost 13 still remain to be resumed. As Philip Lane, chief economist of the ECB, acknowledged, recovery will be long and slow.
For three reasons, repeatedly indicated: the first is that the ballet of restrictions and the easing of social activities will continue for a long time, penalizing the most intensive sectors of physical contacts; then, adjustments to lower levels of demand set in motion chain reactions recessive; In the end, people are afraid of losing their jobs or the company itself, and remain cautious in consumption and investments.
If all goes well (including the discovery and rapid distribution of the vaccine), and maintaining the super-expansive policies (including subsidies: for those who turn up their noses, we recommend reading The legend of the lazy unemployed by Paul Krugman), we might return to pre-crisis activity volumes in two years. In any case, the quality of life will have changed in the meantime, rewarding some sectors and penalizing others. The winners will continue to be innovative companies and dynamic and flexible economic systems.
Many entrepreneurs they're wondering if they'll reopen the business after the summer break (sic! ). Why no orders. Especially from abroad. Yes, they are returning, but in many situations they remain too low to make it possible to continue the business. In other situations this requires the significant reduction of manpower.
So that the job cut announcements they flock to every latitude and longitude. Including Germany, the model of the social market economy. And despite the incentives to keep people employed.
The more than well-founded fear of losing work and salary curbs the optimism and desire to spend of families. In fact, consumer confidence indices are falling, in contrast to those of businesses, which are rising (although remaining depressed).
The summer of our torment is not over yet. In a few weeks we will be even more than today «like the leaves on the trees in autumn». In the trenches, from where Ungaretti wrote, fighting against an invisible enemy. It would be a mistake, however, not to see the progress made and the battles won: in March-April no one would have bet a penny on the possibility of going to the beach or to the mountains, even if equipped with masks and spaced out. And if the vaccine arrives in December…
