News Update – Tuesday, December 1, 2020

APCO Worldwide's Coronavirus Beat is a weekly publication on the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, economies, policy and culture, and how leaders are responding. The final Coronavirus Beat newsletter will appear Tuesday, December 8.

APCO will continue to share updates about COVID-19, the recovery process and looking to a post-pandemic future in the new weekly publication, Stay Ahead, to be distributed beginning in January.

Have a comment about this newsletter? We welcome your feedback.

Business & Economic Impact

1. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a $908 billion stimulus proposal, aiming to break a months-long impasse over providing emergency federal relief, The Washington Post

2. India’s economy shrank 7.5% between July and September, reflecting the deepening of India’s severest recession since at least 1996, The New York Times
3. Turkey’s economy in Q3 rose 6.7% compared to last year, faring far better than G20 peers, due to a stimulus campaign that sacrificed the lira and price stability, Bloomberg

Global Policy

1. Due to labor costs, companies in France are moving production to other countries despite President Macron's goal to reverse globalization during the pandemic, The New York Times

2. The IMF calls for more support to tackle the risk of a eurozone downturn, as the second wave of coronavirus infections and lockdowns poses a risk to the economy, Financial Times
3. Similar to post-Cold War, the resource-scarce African continent post-pandemic will accelerate competition between the United States, EU, China and India, The Atlantic Council

Control Measures

1. Angela Merkel has extended Germany’s partial lockdown to December 20 and cautioned that restrictions will likely remain in place until early January, Bloomberg

2. As a wave of coronavirus infections eases, the Czech Republic health minister announced that restaurants and non-essential shops will be allowed to open on December 3, Reuters
3. Hong Kong will halt all in-person classes at kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools from December 2 until the beginning of school’s Christmas break, The Straits Times

Worth Noting

1. The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert has stated that it would be ‘highly speculative’ for the WHO to suggest that COVID-19 did not originate in China, US News

2. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked capacity limits on churches, ruling that restrictions undermine the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty, The New York Times
3. Insurers failed to anticipate the full economic cost of COVID-19 because they did not foresee how far governments would go to protect their populations, Financial Times

Stay Ahead: Insights from APCO

How to Achieve Healthcare Celebrity Status
Julie Orsini, associate director at APCO's Washington, D.C., office, discusses how health care communicators can adjust their strategies to address current issues:

"The challenges of a global pandemic spotlighted just how quickly healthcare companies need to mobilize to solve complex problems to minimize lasting damage to the population, economy and global outlook—as well as the rising influence that healthcare leaders have on public policy and the way the public interacts with the economy.

As a result, today’s scientists and global health officials have become celebrities. New data shows a significant shift in perception towards healthcare executives, including record trust in the institution of healthcare."

The Stories Behind Inequality and Why We Must Listen
Jordan Fieulleteau, associate consultant at APCO's Washington, D.C., office, discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted inequality in the United States:

"Add a global pandemic, economic collapse and unemployment crisis on top of that and you understand just how disproportionate of an impact that systematic inequality has on the most vulnerable people in our society, including COVID-19 death rates, unemployment claims, eviction rates, homelessness, proximity to quality healthcare and the likelihood of being a frontline worker, among others.

The global pandemic exacerbated and accelerated these preexisting disparities. Those that had strong foundations coming into 2020 were far more likely to be able to weather this storm. The people and families who didn’t almost certainly fell further behind."

Some Positive News

Sourcing local: Pandemic-induced supply chain disruption has prompted South African retailers to agree to source 65% of their clothing from local manufacturers, providing a much-needed boost to the local clothing industry, Bloomberg
Recycling bikes: A recycling center in the UK is working to fix old bikes so that they can be donated to deprived children affected by the pandemic, as well as charities in time for Christmas, BBC
New trends in philanthropy: The pandemic led to an upswing in mutual-aid networks, emergency charity funding and increased support for non-profit organizations pioneered by people of color in the United States, The Wall Street Journal

More Tips from Around the Water Cooler

Pandemic-proof your habits, The New York Times
Do you have e-charisma on Zoom? Here is how to get it, The Wall Street Journal
Be grateful more often, Harvard Business Review
Managing someone whose life has been upended, Harvard Business Review

Quotables

“It seems that almost every week we learn of some new scientific breakthrough to help us beat COVID - last week it was good news about the vaccine from Pfizer BioNTech and then Moderna...But we are not out of the woods yet. We can hear the drumming hooves of the cavalry coming over the brow of the hill but they are not here yet. Even if all three vaccines are approved, even if the production timetables are met - and vaccines notoriously fall behind in their production timetables - it will be months before we can be sure that we have inoculated everyone that needs a vaccine --- and those months will be hard.”

- Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The APCO team is working with clients globally to manage this crisis, and we stand ready to support your needs. For more resources from APCO, including our latest research, information on how we can help or to contact us, visit apcoworldwide.com/coronavirus.

About Coronavirus Beat

Coronavirus Beat is a bulletin of updates and clippings from the most relevant media and government sources created to help APCO’s clients keep abreast of the impacts of COVID-19 from around the world. APCO is supporting clients in managing the issues they confront related to the outbreak. Contact our crisis team at Crisis360@apcoworldwide.com or +1.866.360.APCO (toll-free) or +1.866.483.2726 (outside the United States).

APCO Worldwide is an advisory and advocacy communications consultancy helping leading public and private sector organizations act with agility, and build organizational reputations, brands, relationships and solutions to succeed. APCO has offices in more than 30 major cities throughout the world. To find out how APCO’s integrated services can help your company, visit apcoworldwide.com.