Eco week 22-13 // 28 March 2022
economic-research.bnpparibas.com
9
ECONOMIC PULSE
NEW COVID-19 CASES STABILISE IN EUROPE AND ASIA
After a week of rises, figures for the Covid-19 pandemic have stabilised worldwide, albeit at a high level. 12 million new cases were recorded
around the world in the week of 17-23 March, a figure similar to that in the previous week. However, the picture is uneven around the world, with
figures falling in Africa (-41%), North America (-16%) and South America, whilst numbers merely stabilised in Europe and Asia (Chart 1). Some
1
1
1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide since vaccination campaigns began in the fourth quarter of 2020, including
.6 billion booster doses. As a result, 64% of the world’s population has now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine (Chart 2).
As far as mobility is concerned, visits to retail and leisure facilities continued to increase in the USA, and rose even faster in Japan. In the UK,
the indicator appears to have stabilised, whilst in France and Germany it dipped slightly, with more marked drops in Italy, Spain and Belgium
(
Chart 3, blue line).
Lastly, the trend in the weekly proxy indicator of GDP has remained resolutely positive in all the countries in our sample, with the exception of
Japan, where there was a slight downturn (Chart 3, black line). This indicator is produced by the OECD on the basis of data from Google Trends
for searches relating to consumption, the labour and property markets, industrial activity and uncertainty. The OECD calculates the indicator over
a moving two-year period in order to avoid the comparison basis effect that would result from a comparison with 2020 data.
Tarik Rharrab
*
Google Mobility Reports show how visits and length of stay at different places change compared to a baseline. The baseline is the median value, for the corresponding day of the
week, during the 5-week period Jan 3–Feb 6, 2020. A figure of negative 30% indicates that traffic was down 30% compared to a baseline. The reports show trends over several weeks
with the most recent data representing approximately 2-3 days ago—this is how long it takes to produce the reports. In order to smooth the series, we use a seven-day moving
average of the raw data in the Google Mobility Reports. Source: Google.
DAILY CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES
SHARE OF PEOPLE WHO RECEIVED AT LEAST ONE DOSE OF VACCINE
(
7-DAY MOVING AVERAGE)
Share of people who received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine (23 March 2022)
Change in pp between 21 February to 23 March 2022 [RHS]
Change in pp between 14 February to 16 March 2022 [RHS]
Africa
600000
Asia
Europe
South America
North America
1
1
1
1
1
00
15
9
8
0
0
400000
200000
000000
70
1
5
0
0
6
5
4
3
0
0
0
0
8
6
4
2
00000
00000
00000
00000
0
20
1
0
0
0
1/20
06/20
11/20
04/21
09/21
02/22
CHART 1
SOURCE: JOHNS-HOPKINS UNIVERSITY (03/24/2022), BNP PARIBAS
CHART 2
SOURCE: OUR WORLD IN DATA (03/24/2022), BNP PARIBAS
The bank
for a changing
world