Is always darker just before dawn. The words of Thomas Fuller (English historian and theologian of 1600) help the story of the moment.
2020 is ended badly (and how could it be otherwise?). 2021, on the other hand, is started worse. And, without appearing to be talking crickets (who always meet a well-deserved bad end because they are heavily pedantic), even this bad start was predictable and expected. But the continuation will be better.
Indeed, it is true that theodyssey in the pandemic goes on. But it came at the beginning of the end. Because we have taken the road back to normality in social and economic life. Although it will be a different normality from what we knew. Maybe healthier.
However, the road to the landing place at Ithaca of immunity from the virus, for health and for the economy, is still difficult. For three reasons
First the virus rages. Why the English variant it's much more contagious (finally the British nationalists have something to brag about!). Why the Christmas break in the restrictions on social life, with the relative rush for gifts, it has inevitably caused a surge in infections and deaths. And hers deadly tail it will lengthen in the next few days (just enough for the incubation to run its course, after the New Year's toasts and the rush to sell).
All data unequivocally indicate that the pandemic remains out of control in the major western countries. The autumn lockdown was too brief and partial (don't take offense at those who suffered it in full, and there are many, unfortunately) to bring it back into the fold of (very imperfect) traceability. THE new official infected they stopped going down. The "real" ones that can be estimated on the basis of deaths they are a high multiple of the officers and this multiple is the true thermometer of the ability to monitor the spread of Covid-19: the higher he is, the lower she is. The rate of positivity it is also very high and growing in some countries, despite the high number of tests (this is the case in the USA).
Secondly, the new and tougher restrictions that have been launched will save many lives but inevitably, being the crudest health care tool, they will cause further damage to the productive fabric. And not everyone will be able to be remedied by the relief measures put in place by governments and central banks, ever so allied and well coordinated.
Many businesses will closeespecially small ones. Workers will stay longer unemployed. The redundancy plans, already prepared by the large companies, which must be resized to adjust costs to lower revenues, will start as soon as the solidarity emergency ends.
in Lancet of November we represented right the growing difficulty of resisting as the crisis lengthens. The duration is thus transformed into intensity and depth. And the latter prolong suffering, human rather than banking. The dense report of the Group of 30 speaks indirectly of bad debts, which makes excellent recommendations on how best to calibrate economic policy interventions. Recommendations, however, by no means easy to put into practice.
From the ashes of the pandemic and the grafting of technology other businesses will certainly emerge and jobs will be created, as has always happened, but the transition is often slow and change is not painless.
If the timing of the introduction of new technologies already seemed too fast for our ability to adapt, the pandemic crisis has accelerated them. On the other hand, thanks to this acceleration, vaccines have been prepared so quickly. These are ours Modern times. Therefore it is advisable to seriously follow the doctor's advice to Charlot: «Take things as they come and avoid emotions». Although we, like the protagonist, participate in the «crusade of humanity in pursuit of happiness».
Thirdly, decisive in shortening and alleviating personal and economic suffering (increasingly difficult to separate the two spheres) is the vaccination campaign, which is now the real focus. Detecting how many people have been vaccinated and how many doses are administered is not a "chilling count" (will the political showdown ever come for characters like Gallera?), but the fundamental indicator for understanding whether we will win or lose the war against Covid -19.
The campaign has begun, and this is already a very positive fact. Who would have bet at the beginning of October that we would be able to administer a vaccine by the end of 2020? Then the elaboration of the experts' answers gave a 50% probability of having only one vaccine by the end of April this year and an 85% by the end of December. Today there are three. And three more are in the pipeline (not to mention the Russian and Chinese ones, already administered to 1,5 billion people who can be vaccinated). Science has outdone itself, with exemplary collaboration and information sharing.
The biggest challenge, however, is inlast mile: the injection. In Italy, in order to be able to obtain immunization within a year it is necessary that 1,5 million doses are injected per week. The government target appears to be 450. Surely the country's administrative incapacity is discounted. But in this way we will never be able to return to a free life (see the nice article by Boeri and Perotti on the Republic of January 4). Settling on such an inadequately low number is reminiscent of how many shoot the arrow and then draw the target around where it landed to say they hit the spot.
Le administration difficulties they are testing other countries, starting with the United States. On the other hand, with a large part of doctors and nurses engaged in treating the infected, the shortage of specialized personnel increases. We are caught in a Kafkaesque circle. And Italy is no worse than others, in terms of vaccinations carried out per hundred inhabitants. In the lead is Israel, but it is not an imitable model, for obvious logistical reasons (small country and few inhabitants) and cultural ones (they are militarized in spirit, being in a permanent war arrangement).
However, summer will arrive and the heat will be our ally on the first front (reduction of the infected to be treated) to free up resources on the second (vaccination). This means that the second half of the year is a good term to look at to calibrate the expectations of release from the chains of the virus (given the proven inability to live with it).
La virus deliverance day it could be anticipated, if the vaccination of the frail and most exposed people proceeds rapidly. However, this is a lot of people: counting on the back of an envelope, in Italy about half of the 39 million over 15 years of age who should be vaccinated according to the programs. Then we could imagine the second part of spring as a time for (almost) everyone to be free. All this to understand when the economy can really start to return to the new normal. It will take a few more quarters, perhaps a year, to recover to full capacity.
If in examining the economic prospects the start of vaccination is first good news, the second is the«blue wave" In the USA. Understood not as another disease or as a natural disaster or a pollutant, but as the conquest of the Senate by the Democratic Party. This will allow newly elected President Biden to launch a large part of his electoral stimulus and economic reform program. Which will give a significant boost to growth over the next four years (+4,2% annual average according to Moody's Analytics) of what remains the leading economy in the world in current dollars.
A program that adds up tofurther package voted before the US Congress dissolved at the end of 2020. This alone puts enough money in the pockets of families and businesses to undo any losses from the pandemic. The rest, therefore, will be in excess.
There is enough to look up from the vale of tears we are in and look with a shy smile of optimism the day after tomorrow.
Concerning the valley, coincident economic indicators, derived from the IHS Markit surveys of purchasing managers (PMIs), provide a picture of growth sustained globally in December, but with strong differences territorial and sectoral. The manufacturing slows down a bit the speed that was very high, while the services sector accelerates slightly.
China and the Orient away they continue the race, thanks to having kept the epidemic under control. The Use are forced to slow down due to the loss of control of the virusbut still grow very quickly. The Eurozone and Europe in general they are obliged to stay in the recessive zone, for the same American reason but with less willingness to spend and less public aid than across the Atlantic.
The point is that, as in the past months, these too are what they are the freshest data ages quickly because they fail to incorporate the trend of infections. According to the new restrictions launched in the UK and Germany, which others will also have to imitate, however reluctantly, January will see a further cyclical slowdown.
So, in all likelihood, this year the darkest months for the economy and social life they are precisely the first three. With spring, the shoots of real recovery will come.
