Daily Mail - 03.03.2020

Daily Mail, Tuesday, March 3, 2020 QQQ Page 

‘You will join the family

for lunch. It is not

a public gathering!’

Outbreak ‘may halve global growth’

flights grounded by virus panic

THE coronavirus outbreak could slash glo-

bal economic growth in half and plunge

many countries into recession, an influen-

tial watchdog warned yesterday.

The Organisation for Economic Co-opera-

tion and Development (OECD) lowered its

forecast for this year from 2.9 per cent to

2.4 per cent but predicted a ‘longer-lasting

and more intensive coronavirus outbreak’

could slash this to 1. per cent.

Laurence Boone, the OECD’s chief econo-

mist, said: ‘The main message... is that it

would put many countries into a reces-

sion, which is why we are urging measures

to be taken in the affected areas as quickly

as possible.’ The watchdog said lower

interest rates and stronger government

spending could help boost confidence.

With savers reeling from the worst week

on stock markets since the financial crisis,

the Bank of England said it taking steps to

‘protect financial and monetary stability’.

Analysts predicted the Bank could cut

interest rates from the current 0.7 per

cent in a bid to boost the economy. The

International Monetary Fund and the

World Bank Group said they were ready to

help address the ‘economic challenge’.

Wall Street last night bounced back from

the coronavirus-fuelled sell-off that sent

markets tumbling last week.

The Dow Jones gained .1 per cent – its

biggest percentage increase since 2009.

The tech-focused Nasdaq index had its best

day since 2018. Analysts said the recovery

was partly due to traders using the plunge

as a buying opportunity.

By James Salmon Associate City Editor

Jolted into

action:

PM Boris

Johnson

BORIS Johnson took personal

charge of handling the coronavirus

outbreak last night and declared

that Britain ‘will not be defeated’.

The PM had previously faced criti-

cism for delegating the issue to Health

Secretary Matt Hancock.

Today Mr Johnson will publish a ‘battle

plan’ for coping with a potentially major

outbreak of the virus in the UK.

Last night he gave his first major inter-

view on the issue, in which he conceded

Britain could be facing a ‘mass epidemic’,

but insisted preparations were in hand.

The moves follows Labour claims that Mr

Johnson was a ‘part-time prime minister’,

an allegation that appears to have stung

him. In recent weeks, he also faced major

criticism for refusing to visit areas devas-

tated by the February floods.

Officials yesterday said the PM had been

receiving daily updates on the virus and

holding twice-weekly meetings with Chief

Medical Officer Chris Whitty since January.

But the jibes appear to have jolted No 10

into action to reassure voters that the PM

has a grip on the situation. Yesterday he

chaired his first emergency

Cobra meeting on the matter

after leaving Mr Hancock as

chairman of the previous five.

In an interview with the BBC

last night, Mr Johnson said the

Government had taken ‘every

possible precaution’ in its prepa-

rations for a possible outbreak -

and said the NHS would get all

the resources needed to handle

an unprecedented challenge.

He said that today’s ‘battle

plan’, which will include propos-

als to shut down mass gather-

ings if the situation worsens, was

‘intended to give people a sense

of... the menu of options that we

have to try to stop that expan-

sion, that spread of the disease.’

He added: ‘The most impor-

tant thing now is that we pre-

pare against a possible very sig-

nificant expansion of coronavirus

in the UK population – that’s

clearly on the cards. And I’ll just

remind everybody what I’ve said

for a while now: this country is

very well-prepared, we have a

fantastic NHS, we have a fan-

tastic ability to conduct large-

scale testing.’

The PM acknowledged that

the UK was likely to have ‘thou-

sands’ of cases of the virus in the

coming months, although pri-

vately officials acknowledge that

there could be millions in a worst

case scenario.

Mr Johnson also warned that

the disruption caused by people

being off work would hit the econ-

omy. He said: ‘Something like a

mass epidemic is going to have all

sorts of consequences and there

is always the potential for an eco-

nomic downside as well... But

don’t forget the fundamentals of

the UK economy are very strong.’

He added: ‘I have absolutely no

doubt that this country will not

be defeated by coronavirus and

that we will come through it very

well, in the end.’

A ‘war room’ has been set up in

the Cabinet Office to bring

health and communications

experts together ahead of a

major public information cam-

paign. Meanwhile, it emerged

the UK is set to pull out of a

European scheme for tackling

virus pandemics.

Downing Street said the UK

would look to develop alterna-

tives to the Early Warning and

Response System after the

Brexit transition expires despite

health experts and the NHS urg-

ing ministers to retain member-

ship of the scheme.

By Jason Groves

Political Editor

PM surfaces

• and vows

that Britain

will not be

defeated

LittLejohn

paGe

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