Investors received some respite last week from the gloom that had pervaded markets recently.
The S&P 500 rose 10.3 percent last week even as the US became the country with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world.
As of Sunday evening, there were more than 137,000 cases and at least 2,400 deaths from the disease.
Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on CNN on Sunday that, based on modelling, 100,000 or more could die from the disease in the US.
Meanwhile, despite having a smaller population than the US, the number of cases in Italy hit 97,689 on Sunday. It also has 10,779 deaths from the disease, the highest in the world.
The good news, though, is that the daily rise in infections has slowed to 5.6 per cent, the lowest rate since Italian officials started tracking cases following the first death on 21 February.
There is no sense of complacency though in the Italian government. "The measures expiring on Apr 3 will inevitably be extended," said regional affairs minister Francesco Boccia, referring to the lockdown.
No comments:
Post a Comment