Educations ruined by Covid lockdowns will impact the world for years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned, as it said the outlook for the global economy is the “bleakest” it has been in decades. The Telegraph has more.
The IMF warned that “scars from the pandemic, including to students’ learning and human capital formation, could weigh on economies for years to come”.
Global GDP is expected to grow by just 3% per year in the immediate future, the economists said. That is well below the 3.9% average seen over the period from 2000 to 2019, which included the global financial crisis and the underwhelming recovery from the credit crunch.
The IMF blamed disrupted education, a wave of retirement and sickness that has forced people out of the jobs market, and heightening global tensions that are breaking economic links between countries.
Other factors holding back growth include “slower than previously anticipated pace of structural reforms, lower projections for labour force growth, and increasing pressures from geoeconomic fragmentation”.
At the same time the global economy can no longer rely on the support of a rapidly growing Chinese economy, which bolstered growth in the early years of this century.
Surging inflation in the post-pandemic world has also damaged economies.
The blame goes on the ‘pandemic’, but it was the lockdowns that harmed education of course, not a virus that mainly just kills the elderly at a rate around 10% higher than usual for a year or two.
But have we learned? Not if the Covid Inquiry is any indication.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.