Pandemic fuels historic US job losses
EU MULLS KEEPING BORDERS SHUT UNTIL JUNE 15
>>WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday recorded its steepest job losses in history over the coronavirus pandemic as Europe moved to keep its borders shut for another month.
Hopes have been rising that the worst of the global catastrophe, which has killed more than 270,000 people, has passed, and the United States on Friday approved a new at-home saliva test to speed up diagnosis for Covid-19.
But after weeks in which half of humanity was restricted from carrying on normal life, the effects have been painfully visible, with the global economy suffering its most acute downturn in nearly a century.
In the United States, 20.5 million jobs were wiped out in April — the most ever reported — with unemployment rising to 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression.
The world’s largest economy has suffered the deadliest coronavirus outbreak with more than 77,000 fatalities and nearly 1.3 million cases.
Mindful of elections in November, President Donald Trump has nonetheless vowed to reopen the country, and a growing number of state governors have already let business resume with precautions.
Mr Trump played down the unemployment numbers as the White House pointed to substantial gains on Friday on global stock markets as proof that better times were ahead.
“We’re going to have a phenomenal year next year,” Mr Trump told reporters. “I think it’s going to come back blazing.”
Neighbouring Canada also shed three million jobs, bringing its unemployment rate up to 13.1%, two days after the European Union forecast a massive recession in the bloc.
A number of governments are moving to ease restrictions. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, took decisive early action that stemmed the virus and Chancellor Angela Merkel plans an almost complete return to normal within the month.
Italy, where deaths on Friday passed 30,000, plans to allow worshippers to return to church, while Denmark said cinemas, museums and zoos would reopen on June 8.
Pakistan was due to begin easing its nationwide lockdown yesterday even as cases continued to rise, citing economic havoc that the measures have wreaked.
In Britain, which has suffered the world’s highest death toll after the
United States, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to offer a roadmap out of lockdown today.
The European Commission recommended that the 27-nation bloc keep banning non-essential entry of visitors until June 15, an extension of one month.
“The situation remains fragile both in Europe and in the world,” it said in a statement.
Far from bringing the world together, the crisis has also triggered a war of words between China, where the virus first appeared in the metropolis of Wuhan, and the United States, where Mr Trump has battled criticism over his handling of the epidemic.
The Trump administration has brought into the mainstream a theory that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory, despite the World Health Organization and the top US epidemiologist saying there is no evidence.
China rejects the charge and America’s allies are not convinced.
The feud spread on Friday to the UN Security Council, where the US, stunning other members, prevented a vote on a resolution that called for a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world to allow governments to better address the pandemic among those suffering most.
Diplomats said Washington was concerned about language in the resolution on the role of the World Health Organization, which has been at the forefront of confronting the Covid-19 pandemic which has devastated the world.
Mr Trump has vowed to freeze the more than US$400 million (12.8 billion baht) in annual US funding for the UN body, saying it did not act quickly enough when the mysterious respiratory disease emerged in Wuhan and blindly took the word of China.
The US State Department on Friday also accused China and Russia of sharply escalating disinformation online about the virus, including promoting conspiracy theories that it was cooked up by US scientists.