Lockdown effects

There are three main types of effects of lockdown:-

1. Health effects

2. Economic effects

3. Environmental effects

There are two types of health effects which are physical and mental. The major and the most drastic effect of COVID-19 was the health effect because first, it leads to huge numbers of death and then we went into lockdown which leads to an even greater level of mental effect.

The coronavirus pandemic has reached almost every country in the world. Its spread has left national economies devastated and businesses counting the costs and some getting bankrupt, as governments struggle with lockdown measures to tackle the spread of the virus. Despite the development of new vaccines, many are still wondering what recovery could look like. Here is a selection of some facts, charts and maps to help in understanding the economic impact of the virus so far.

Global equity indices in flux

• Big shifts in stock markets, where shares in companies are bought and sold, can affect the value of pensions or individual savings accounts (Isas).

• The FTSE, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nikkei all saw huge falls as the number of Covid-19 cases grew in the first months of the crisis.

• The major Asian and US stock markets have recovered following the announcement of the first vaccine in November, but the FTSE is still in negative territory.

• The FTSE dropped 14.3% in 2020, its worst performance since 2008.In response, central banks in many countries, including the UK, have slashed interest rates. That should, in theory, make borrowing cheaper and encourage spending to boost the economy.

• Some markets recovered ground in January this year, but this is a normal tendency known as the "January effect".

• Analysts are worried that the possibility of further lockdowns and delays in vaccination programmes might trigger more market volatility this year.

A difficult year for job seekers / increase in unemployment

• Many people have lost their jobs or seen their incomes cut. Unemployment rates have increased across major economies.

• In the United States, the proportion of people out of work hit a yearly total of 8.9%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• Millions of workers have also been put on government-supported job retention schemes as parts of the economy, such as tourism and hospitality, have come to a near standstill.

• The numbers of new job opportunities are still very low in many countries.

• Job vacancies in Australia have returned to the same level of 2019, but they are lagging in France, Spain, the UK and several other countries.

• Some experts have warned it could be years before levels of employment return to those seen before the pandemic.

Economic recession

• Economic growth is measured as the percentage change in gross domestic product (GDP). If the economy is growing, that generally means more wealth and more new jobs.

• The IMF estimates that the global economy shrunk by 4.4% in 2020. The organisation described the decline as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

• The only major economy to grow in 2020 was China. It registered a growth of 2.3%.

• The IMF is, however, predicting global growth of 5.2% in 2021. That will be driven primarily by countries such as India and China, forecast to grow by 8.8% and 8.2% respectively.

• Recovery in big, services-reliant, economies that have been hit hard by the outbreak, such as the UK or Italy, is expected to be slow.

Travel and Hospitality sector worse hit

• The travel and hospitality industry has been badly impacted and hit hard.

• Business travellers have stopped travelling as all major corporates and industries have asked its employees to work from home and conduct all meetings online.

• Even people travelling for holidays now prefer to stay at home in fear of catching the virus and getting sick.

• Many countries have been forced to introduce lockdown and tighter travel restrictions in wake of the new variants of the virus - discovered only in recent months.

• People working in hospitality and travel sector have been hit hard, with loss of millions of jobs and many companies getting bankrupt.

• Many analysts believe that international travel and tourism won't return to the normal pre-pandemic levels until around 2025.

Shopping... at home

• Retail footfall has seen unprecedented falls as shoppers stayed at home.

• New variants and surges in cases have made problems worse.

• Pedestrian numbers have fallen further from the first lockdown, according to research firm ShopperTrak,

• Separate research suggests that consumers are still feeling anxious about their return to stores. Accountancy giant EY says 67% customers are now not willing to travel more than 5 kilometres for shopping.

• This change in shopping behaviour has significantly boosted online retail, with a global revenue of $3.9 trillion in 2020.

Pharmaceutical companies, only the winners

• Governments around the world have pledged billions of dollars for a Covid-19 vaccine and treatment.

• Pharmaceutical companies

• Vaccination drive across all major countries in the world has increased revenue of these companies resulting in higher profits.

• Shares in some pharmaceutical companies involved in vaccine development have shot up.

• Moderna, Novavax and AstraZeneca have seen significant rises.

• But Pfizer has seen its share price fall. The partnership with BioNTech, the high cost of production and management of the vaccine, and the growing number of same-size competitors have reduced the investors' trust in the company to have bigger revenue in 2021.

• A number of pharmaceutical firms such as Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi/GSK have started already distributing doses and many more countries have started their vaccination programmes in 2021.

Environmental Effects

Coronavirus has had both positive and negative impacts on the environment.

The positive impacts are:-

• Reduction of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions- As industries, transportation and companies have closed down, it has brought a sudden drop in greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Compared with this time of last year, levels of air pollution in New York has reduced by nearly 50% because of measures taken to control the virus.

• Reduction of water pollution- Water pollution is a common phenomenon of a developing country like India, and Bangladesh, where domestic and industrial wastes are dumped into rivers without treatment. During the lockdown period, the major industrial sources of pollution have shrunk or completely stopped, which helped to reduce the pollution load. For instance, the river Ganga and Yamuna have reached a significant level of purity due to the absence of industrial pollution on the days of lockdown in India. It is found that, among the 36 real-time monitoring stations of river Ganga, water from 27 stations met the permissible limit.

The negative impacts are:-

• Increase in biomedical waste generation- Since the outbreak of COVID-19, medical waste generation is increased globally, which is a major threat to public health and the environment. For sample collection of the suspected COVID-19 patients, diagnosis, treatment of a huge number of patients, and disinfection purpose lots of infectious and biomedical wastes are generated from hospitals. Wuhan in China produced more than 240 metric tons of medical wastes every day during the time of the outbreak which is almost 190 m tonnes higher than the normal time.