Tribune. The recovery will be uneven, as just confirmed the latest forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which revises upward growth in developed countries and reduces that of emerging countries accordingly. The gap between the states benefiting from an effective vaccination policy and the others will inevitably widen. And the “winners” of the first wave, such as Vietnam or Australia, are now lagging behind and have no other choice but to close their borders for lack of sufficient vaccination. Asia, the first to have entered the health crisis, could finally be the last to emerge from it (with the notable exception of China, with 1.5 billion people vaccinated), while Europe, slow to recover. put in working order, caught up with the United States to reach 70% of first-time vaccines.
The recovery will thus be stronger in the vaccinated countries, able to reopen without endangering their health system. France should experience growth of 5.5% while Thailand should approach 1%. Developed countries will regain their level of gross domestic product (GDP) much faster than emerging countries (on average two years, i.e. a very short time for the former compared to the 2008 crisis – five years), while, among the latter, only 40% will succeed.
Poverty has sharply increased, it is now estimated that 125 million people live on less than $ 1.90 per day; and malnutrition fell from 135 million people affected in 2019 to 165 million in 2020, according to the world Bank.
Higher excess mortality
Potential growth, and therefore the future, will be more affected in the most affected countries, often low-income, due to both less budget support – rich countries have been able to mobilize almost four times more budget support that the emerging and eight times more than the poorest -, a higher excess mortality, a shock on education – the long-term damage to the level of education will be more marked where schools have been closed the longest – and the afterglow of the shock. An article by Francesco Bianchi, Giada Bianchi and Dongho Song (The Long Term Impact of the Covid 19, NBER) estimates that, with unemployment, excess mortality will persist for the next fifteen years in the United States and puts the number of associated deaths (suicide, alcoholism, drugs, etc.) at 800,000.
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