Rabobank: “There Will Be Attempts To Go Back To Normal After This Crisis, But It Will Be Impossible”
The Grand National-ists
The weekend’s world-famous UK horse race, the Grand National, was won by Potters Corner, trained in Wales and ridden by Jack Tudor, at 18-1. That’s a little unusual – but not as much as the fact that this was all a virtual race run on a computer because the actual Grand National was cancelled for the first time since WW2 due to COVID-19.
I mention this because there is a lot of Grand National-ism about at the moment due to this virus. After all, Germany accused (then apparently retracted, to far less attention) claims of ”piracy” as 200,000 face masks in Bangkok destined for it ended up in the US instead: this is normally called “gazumping” in the UK, and in healthier times is seen as perfectly natural – which says something about how we used to operate. The US is also refusing to send medical gear to Canada. Germany itself had of course previously refused to send ventilators and masks to Italy when asked, and France requisitioned private-sector stocks weeks ago. Meanwhile, China has placed strict controls on the export of personal protective equipment (PPE), masks, and virus test kits – which is a problem given it is still the world’s bulk producer – though the Czechs, Dutch, Spanish, and Turkish have all reportedly returned such gear for being faulty, and one news report alleges Pakistan received a shipment of masks clearly made of women’s underwear.
In terms of medicine, there is also a struggle to access virus testing chemical reagents – Israel has had to scale back its testing as Germany has nationalised one of the chemical producers and South Korea has been forced to close one of its plants due to the virus itself.
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