IAN Week in Review: Infections soar, EU leaders fail to agree on coronabonds

COVID19 infections accelerated around the world this week, as the US surpassed China in total coronavirus cases, reporting 81943 infections. In Europe, Italy and Spain registered record numbers of deaths caused by the new coronavírus, at 919 and 832 respectively.

As Europe remains mostly in lockdown and the economic effects begin to be felt on companies and households, the ECB lifted limitations on its special bond buying programme announced last week. Most importantly, the limit to buy no more than a third of any country’s eligible bonds will be waved in its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme, worth €750bn. However, European leaders failed to agree on whether they should launch a special Coronabond to jointly support their faltering economies. In the US, the President signed an extraordinary $2tn coronavirus stimulus package.

Readings from around the world

In It Together: Protecting the Health of Africa’s People and their Economies, by Karen Ongley and Abebe Aemro Selassie
Coronavirus must not destroy an open world economy, by FT’s Editorial Board: The global health emergency makes trade more important, not less
We face a war against coronavirus and must mobilise accordingly, by Mario Draghi
Dickens and Orwell — the choice for capitalism, by Janan Ganesh: When this is all over, there is likely to be a new social contract. Which way will we go?
Drug gangs in Brazil’s favelas enforce coronavirus lockdown, by Andres Schipani and Bryan Harris: Organised crime steps in as President Bolsonaro dismisses pandemic as ‘sniffles’
The state in the time of covid-19, by The Economist: Big government is needed to fight the pandemic. What matters is how it shrinks back again afterwards
The Real Pandemic Danger Is Social Collapse, by Branki Milanovic: As the Global Economy Comes Apart, Societies May, Too
They Survived the Spanish Flu, the Depression and the Holocaust, by Ginia Bellafante: Two extraordinary women — one 101, the other 95 — lived through the worst of the 20th century. They have some advice for you.
El coronavirus causa más muertes de las detectadas, by Oriol Güell: Un informe de Sanidad destapa que la falta de pruebas ha dejado fuera de los recuentos a más de la mitad de los fallecidos en Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha y Castilla y León durante varios días
Le Nobel Denis Mukwege : en Afrique, « il faut agir au plus vite si nous voulons éviter l’hécatombe », by Annick Cojean