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What are germs? Are they deadly, friendly, do we have germs on us at all times? You have germs on you all the time, you can wash your hands or wear a mask to prevent your germs spreading but they will get back on you anyways. Why would you want to prevent from germs spreading during this time, its spring and beautiful out. Well we are in a global pandemic and wearing a mask and washing our hands will help in everyway. Here are some claims and evidence why you should wear a mask, be safe and be prepared

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If we give the government money then they can pay for our tests and supplies. As noted in a recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a global-health research group at the University of Washington School of Medicine, annual funding for global health in 2019 was an estimated $41 billion (less than 20% of which came from the U.S.). Of that total, the group estimated that less than 1% was for pandemic preparedness—some $374 million. This shows that the government spent millions and millions to get us into good shape and get us prepared for the next virus.

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Fast forward to 2023. The Covid-19 pandemic is largely behind us. Most of the world has been vaccinated, though we have to tamp down occasional flare-ups and people sometimes still wear masks. While we mourn the millions who died, we have entered a post-pandemic world in which most things are more or less as they were before Covid-19. Travel and trade are unrestricted; everything from dinner parties and big weddings to stadium concerts and megachurch services are being held again; and economies are booming to keep pace with pent-up demand.

Then, just as suddenly as Covid-19 emerged, disease detectives discover a fresh cluster of a new, pneumonia-like illness. Testing quickly confirms that it isn't a variant of Covid-19 but a new influenza virus that jumped-somehow, somewhere-from birds to humans. The new virus is as infectious as the one that caused Covid-19 but four times as deadly. And unlike Covid-19, but like the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic, the new virus is particularly deadly to young adults-and, in this case, also to children.

A horrifying influenza pandemic isn't the only nightmare scenario that could be worse than Covid-19. Think of the hundreds of thousands of cases of tick-borne Lyme disease in the U.S. each year. In other parts of the world, some ticks spread Ebola-like illnesses, and if these infections spread to the U.S., tick-bites could also lead to a disease with the terrifying lethality of Ebola. Or a highly drug-resistant bacterium could spread rapidly. Or a laboratory could develop an untreatable, vaccine-defying strain of a virus or bacterium and-intentionally or by accident-release it into the world.

The world wasn't ready for Covid-19. Will we be ready for the next, inevitable pandemic?

To prepare, we must start by understanding that the lessons from battling Covid-19 aren't just about Covid-19. We will fail if we learn nothing more than how to fight the last war better. Now is the time to get ready and to realize that the costs of preparedness will be dwarfed by the price of disaster. Here are six urgent steps the world must take to become far more pandemic-proof.

1. Set a new goal for early warning and response: 7-1-7.

We will have to respond rapidly to any potentially major new health threat. I suggest a goal of "7-1-7": Every country should be able to identify any new suspected outbreak within seven days of emergence, start to investigate the event within one day and report it then, and mount an effective response-defined by clear, specific benchmarks for different pathogens-within seven days.

These goals will help governments focus attention and resources. Part of the reluctance to fund health preparedness has been a lack of simple measurements of progress. One reason for the broad bipartisan support for the global battles against HIV and malaria has been the appeal, to American politicians and voters alike, of clear metrics: the numbers of people treated, bed-nets distributed, lives saved. For HIV, the goal has been what the U.N. calls "90-90-90" -ensuring that 90% of people infected with HIV know their status, getting sustained treatment to 90% of those diagnosed and suppressing the viral load of 90% of the people on treatment. This strategy has turned concrete, lifesaving outcomes into targets for global action. Meeting the 7-1-7 goal, or something like it, is essential to a safer planet, but it won't be easy. It will require several other steps.

2. Bolster the capacity of countries to prepare and respond.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have learned a crucial lesson over the past two decades: The best emergency responses use everyday systems that are robust enough to scale up in an emergency. Yet efforts to strengthen such systems are often unfocused. Enhancing countries' capacities will require substantial resources, robust technical assistance and an insistence on accountability.

As noted in a recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a global-health research group at the University of Washington School of Medicine, annual funding for global health in 2019 was an estimated $41 billion (less than 20% of which came from the U.S.). Of that total, the group estimated that less than 1% was for pandemic preparedness-some $374 million.

Credible estimates of the amount needed to boost preparedness (beyond current investments) in low- and middle-income countries start at $5 to 10 billion a year for the next two or three years, continuing for at least a decade. This would come in addition to funding for better research, primary healthcare and other steps essential for progress. This is serious money, but it is dwarfed by the costs of an out-of-control pandemic, as we have all painfully learned.

Many countries will need technical assistance, which can be provided in part by the World Health Organization and its networks, as well as by the U.S. CDC. Such efforts could be complemented by additional regional public-health organizations. For instance, during the Covid-19 crisis, the newly created Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (a public-health agency of the African Union officially launched in 2017) has supported stronger disease-tracking and response systems, as well as a rapid expansion of sorely needed laboratory services on the continent. The European Union announced late last year a 20-fold increase in funding for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (founded in 2004), and discussions are under way about creating similar regional disease-control centers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Stronger bilateral programs from the U.S., the U.K. and other wealthy countries can also help. China would be likely to follow suit and increase its own global public-health engagement. Structured well, this could be an area for U.S.-Chinese collaboration.

As recent studies in the Lancet and other medical journals have noted, the Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the central importance of primary care. New infectious diseases will be able to spread widely until patients can afford to go to health centers as soon as they feel ill, clinicians are trained to diagnose and report patients with unusual conditions, and health centers can provide accessible treatments and vaccinations. Most countries haven't invested remotely enough in primary care-including the U.S., which performs abysmally on core measures of primary-care quality. This is a major reason for the rocky U.S. rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations.

But even with more money and better technical assistance, the world won't be able to meet the 7-1-7 goal unless it is organized for success.

3. Let global institutions focus on what they do best.

As the lead U.N. agency for global public health, the WHO remains the indispensable anchor of such efforts. The organization has obvious limitations: It has often been underfunded, underpowered and reluctant to criticize governments. But it performs several indispensable roles: providing evidence-based public-health guidance, facilitating international collaboration, openly tracking data and helping countries to strengthen their public-health efforts.

The WHO needs real reforms to meet its mission. It must be much better insulated from political and geographic considerations in the hiring and promotion of staff, as well as in its assessments of countries and recommendations to them. A stronger WHO could provide robust technical support to governments world-wide, especially through its proposed Global Strategic Preparedness Network.

As the world faces 21st-century pandemics, its international public-health structures still come largely from post-World War II agreements, with newer entities often grafted awkwardly onto them. The WHO was central to global health during the Cold War era, with a prominent role for the U.S. CDC too, but new entities-including new national and regional CDCs based on the U.S. model-have reshaped the landscape of global health.

The two largest new public-health groups-the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance-have a combined budget that is about twice that of the WHO. Some new philanthropies, particularly the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, are also large and influential.

The Global Fund is a major financier of programs to combat the three diseases in its title, while Gavi helps to negotiate and finance vaccines for lower-income countries. Both are international organizations that aren't part of the U.N. and aren't under WHO control. They receive their substantial resources from country governments, which have steadily increased their investments in the Global Fund and Gavi because of their efficiency, accountability and impressive results. But both entities were created without strong technical components (in large part to avoid alienating the WHO), and the WHO hasn't been able to provide sufficient specialized expertise to ensure that Global Fund and Gavi programs reach their potential.

These new entities have brought far more resources, energy and accountability into global health, but they haven't substantially strengthened laboratory capacity, disease monitoring, primary care and other capacities essential to beating Covid-19 and future pandemics.

4. Get buy-in from wealthier countries and major philanthropies.

By working together to strengthen early-warning systems, share data, improve rapid-response capacities and strengthen health-protection systems world-wide, we can save millions of lives and trillions of dollars. This will cost billions a year, spent by countries large and small, but that pales in comparison to the International Monetary Fund's October 2020 estimate that Covid-19 has cost the world some $20 trillion. The next pandemic could be even deadlier-and costlier.

The world needs new financial mechanisms for readiness that can administer funds efficiently, offering accountability and boosting confidence for government investments. The World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other entities can play important roles. Most important, the Global Fund could both generate and disburse funds for national preparedness. It could offer not just money but specific benchmarks toward the 7-1-7 goal and a new, pandemic-specific structure for ownership and oversight in recipient countries, involving ministries of finance, health, agriculture and more, as well as the private sector and civil-society groups.

5. Persuade the world to respond globally and address dangerous gaps.

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," as the old saying goes. Today, failures of global cooperation worsen the spread of infectious diseases by leaving the world blind to emerging threats. But by working together-by sharing data, knowledge and resources-we can increase our shared safety and security.

One neglected issue is improving laboratory safety. Some lab errors are inevitable, but we have insufficient global standards-and no global oversight-to reduce the risk of unintentional release of deadly pathogens, as may have occurred with influenza from an accidental laboratory release in the former Soviet Union in the late 1970s and is documented to have occurred with smallpox in the U.K. in 1978 and with SARS in China in 2004.

Release of a biological agent could be as deadly as a nuclear war, and we need similarly vigorous systems of standards and inspections to reduce that horrifying risk. Advances in biological science have made it increasingly easy to create dangerous pathogens. A global compact to limit the number of laboratories, personnel and experiments and to more safely manage them could substantially reduce the risk. Even reaching this modest goal would be difficult: It would be expensive, require global agreement, face resistance by researchers, demand inspections and still fail to eliminate the risk of bad actors. But we urgently need it nonetheless.

We must also reduce the risk of diseases spreading from animal populations to humanity. Most dangerous new pathogens emerge from human contact with animals, often because of our encroachment into traditional habitats. A global, enforceable compact, as proposed by Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution and others, would help to end the commercial sale of wild animals for food. In parts of Africa and Asia where bush meat is important to nutrition, we will also need economic measures that make it easier to substitute other locally available sources of protein, and much stronger programs are needed to reduce the risk of influenza spreading from birds and swine to people.

Finally, the world must increase its manufacturing capacity for diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. Pathogens spread, so we cannot leave millions without access to the top-quality diagnosis, treatment and vaccines we want for ourselves. The Rand Corp. has warned of the dangers of "vaccine nationalism," in which "countries push to get first access to a supply of vaccines, potentially hoarding key components for vaccine production."

Such short-sighted behavior is both ethically indefensible and politically inevitable. One solution would be to increase manufacturing by countries with relatively small populations, which would be able to vaccinate their own populations without having much impact on the overall supply. The world could also work to boost manufacturing capacity through companies that accept global financing in exchange for their agreement to produce reasonably priced products that meet stringent standards and to distribute them in underserved regions.

Exciting new technologies such as mRNA-which made possible the first two Covid-19 vaccines licensed in the U.S.-raise the promise of platforms that can be rapidly repurposed to tackle new threats. Globally supported mRNA production facilities could help end the current pandemic and, potentially, produce lifesaving vaccines and medicines that would create a sustainable business model, with sales to public and private purchasers between pandemics.

But more than all this, we need a new global attitude.

6. Don't wait.

We must act now: 2021 is the now-or-never moment to improve global resilience in facing future pandemics. We can't know the character or the timing of the threats ahead, but they are inevitable. There is no time to lose in making preparations.

Public-health decisions are unavoidably political. Failing to act, in the face of Covid-19's proof that the world is dangerously vulnerable, would also be a decision. This year, when the urgency of such work is so clear, we must make significant investments to protect and expand global health-or we and our children will face the dire consequences.
-Dr. Frieden was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017. He is the president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the public-health organization Vital Strategies, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Fast forward to 2023. The Covid-19 pandemic is largely behind us. Most of the world has been vaccinated, though we have to tamp down occasional flare-ups and people sometimes still wear masks. While we mourn the millions who died, we have entered a post-pandemic world in which most things are more or less as they were before Covid-19.

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Audio and Picture for sanitizer purchases compared from 2017-2023

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Audio and Picture for sanitizer purchases compared from 2017-2023

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The photo below represents what percentage of people where masks off-duty and in public places and the majority of it says yes. Fast forward back to when covid-19 was not as serious this chart would be most no's and limited yes's. If people knew what would happen to our country and were prepared maybe not as many cases or deaths would appear

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Covid-19 spread rate in the first couple of days being serious with safety 

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Covid-19 spread rate in the first couple of days being serious with safety 

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If you click on the link down below it will lead you to a photo of in May-April 2020 Covid-19 rapid spread. This spread sky rocketed in the U.S from 0-800k cases in a little over a month from people partying and not being safe, not wearing masks, not washing our hands before we eat then seeing other people, ETC. This is what caused all of the cases

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The coverage on this live blog has ended - but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.

The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic crossed 200,000 on Saturday as countries and a handful of U.S. states ease lockdown restrictions. New York, the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., reported hospitalization and death rates that continue to improve, while doctors and experts around the globe weigh in on testing, treatment and vaccination.

Global cases: More than 2.8 million

Global deaths: At least 201,502

U.S. cases: More than 925,500

U.S. deaths: At least 53,070

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
All times below are in Eastern time.
Potbelly said it will return its $10 million loan from the Payroll Protection Program intended for small businesses, making it the latest notable name to return the funds.

Potbelly, which received the maximum loan amount, has a market cap of $71.2 million.

The sandwich shop chain follows other large, public companies like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and Shake Shack to give back the government funds meant to help businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic. -Hannah Miller

Last year at this time, Sabrina Paseman was at Apple working on the design of the Mac Pro. Now, she's holed up in a San Francisco apartment with another ex-Apple employee trying to address the global mask shortage.

Paseman and Megan Duong are founders of a nonprofit they're calling Fix The Mask, an effort to create a simple solution to a massive and growing problem. The lack of protective gear amid the Covid-19 pandemic is first and foremost a crisis in the health-care industry, but as states and countries start loosening social-distancing restrictions, the need for masks becomes more acute for people on buses, in stores and in the workplace. -Ari Levy

People who receive benefits through either the Department of Veterans Affairs or Supplemental Security Income who have children have a new deadline if they want to get all of the stimulus money that is due them.

The government said on Friday that those beneficiaries who have children and who do not typically file tax returns need to update their information by May 5 in order for their eligible dependents to be counted in their stimulus payments.

That goes particularly if you have not filed tax returns for the 2018 or 2019 tax years and you have children under age 17. The government has set up a website for non-filers where they can enter their information. -Lorie Konish

Google, Facebook and Twitter have partnered with the nonprofit Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) to launch Tech Together (TechTogether.co), an online platform to offer support to individuals with substance use disorders. The site is a collection of resources to help those experiencing substance use disorder or battling addiction and the associated stigma.

Many of these people have lost their 12-step meetings and other in-person resources during coronavirus social distancing practices. Tim Ryan, star of the 2017 A&E documentary "Dope Man" and recovery advocate for the treatment resource Rehab.com, said that the resulting isolation from shelter-in-place orders has created conditions that are ripe for substance abuse.

" Covid-19 has cultivated an environment that lacks accountability and visibility, which allows people to engage in drug and alcohol abuse while in isolation," Ryan said. -Daniel Bukszpan

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the state is expanding diagnostic coronavirus testing to first responders, health care workers and essential employees and aims to provide tests to 40,000 people each day.

Cuomo will also sign an executive order to allow independent pharmacists to conduct diagnostic testing. This will unlock a network of over 5,000 pharmacies as testing locations, he said.

The governor said he plans to expand testing to 40,000 people per day with the help of the federal government as well as expand the criteria for someone to receive a diagnostic test. The state is currently averaging about 6,000 new virus cases every day. -Emma Newburger

Dr. David Ho has more experience than most with viruses.

As director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City in the early 1990s, Ho's lab pioneered treatment approaches to HIV and he was TIME's Man of the Year for that work in 1996. He still leads the center.

Now, his focus is Covid-19 or more specifically SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

He and a team of about 15 people are working on two different approaches to stopping the virus: isolating antibodies from people who've recovered from Covid-19, and developing new drugs called protease inhibitors that interfere with the virus's ability to replicate.

Here are Ho's thoughts on some of the most prominent drugs and approaches under consideration for Covid-19 right now. - Meg Tirrell

The coronavirus patients began arriving the last week of March, transferred to the Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center under a New York state mandate requiring nursing homes to accept those recovering from Covid-19, even if they still might be contagious.

At the time, the Long Island nursing home had only one known resident who had contracted the virus, according to the facility's president and CEO, Stuart Almer.

A month later, NBC News reports, Gurwin is battling an outbreak that's killed 24 residents - only three of whom were hospital transfers - and one staff member, who worked in housekeeping, Almer said. And the nursing home is still mandated to take in recovering hospital patients known to have the virus, potentially increasing its spread in the facility. Read the full report on Gurwin here. -NBC News

Walking into an auto parts plant in suburban Detroit, General Motors employees are instructed to stand at least six feet apart and go through a health screening that includes a temperature check. They also sanitize their hands and put on a face mask and safety glasses.

It's a far different process than how the former transmission facility, which GM decommissioned last year, used to operate with hundreds of employees freely entering and exiting the facility all at once.

As automakers wrestle with how to open their production facilities safely, timing is contentious.

UAW President Rory Gamble on Thursday said that the union believes restarting production in early-May is "too soon and too risky" for its members. Read the full story of how automakers plan to open their U.S. plants here. -Michael Wayland

Rich Barton, CEO and cofounder of online real estate service Zillow, told his employees on Friday that they can work from home through 2020.

"My personal opinions about WFH have been turned upside down over the past 2 months. I expect this will have a lasting influence on the future of work ... and home," the internet entrepreneur said in a verified tweet early Saturday morning.

Many nonessential workers around the country have been doing their jobs remotely for weeks, often while homeschooling and caring for their children, and about a quarter of them say they want to continue working from home at least part-time after the pandemic ends. -Elisabeth Butler Cordova

"There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection."

That's the warning from the Word Health Organization in a new scientific brief. It comes in direct response to some governments suggesting that the detection of antibodies to the virus could serve as the basis for an "immunity passport" or "risk-free certificate."

"Most of these studies show that people who have recovered from infection have antibodies to the virus. However, some of these people have very low levels of neutralizing antibodies in their blood, suggesting that cellular immunity may also be critical for recovery," the statement read. Read the full brief here. - Matt Clinch

Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said Saturday that Iran's death toll had risen by 76, to reach a total of 5,650, according to Reuters.

The total number of people confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus in the country is 89,328, he added. - Matt Clinch

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Global coronavirus deaths cross 200,000, US beaches reopen, NY expands testing

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The coverage on this live blog has ended - but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team. The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic crossed 200,000 on Saturday as countries and a handful of U.S. states ease lockdown restrictions.

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Some people say that during pandemics and deadly viruses that you shouldn't need to wear masks or wash your hands. Most of these people believe that they need to breathe or need to be free but during a global pandemic where germs a sicknesses spread rapidly, it is most certainly better to follow the safety procedures so everyone is safe and people vulnerable to die aren't at stake as much.

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According to the financial finesse group, we need to be prepared for the next virus/ disease because it can help the spread of cases decrease slowly  . Also we can be prepared by getting supplies earlier then everyone else and staying home. Staying home can lead to cases going down by not seeing anyone. it can get people jobs back faster and help people who are financially struggling.

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There are many pros and cons about if we should be financially prepared for viruses and diseases. We should be financially prepared for the virus because the expensive cost is worth it to get rid of the virus. If we give the money to the government then they can work to get rid of the virus faster

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Being financially prepared for large-scale disasters is something that should be attempted by everyone who can, especially the government.

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We can make people ready for the next epidemic and create jobs at the same time if we have the same type of system for the military as for fighting off epidemics and other germ related issues. Bill Gates said in 2015 that if we aren’t prepared for the next epidemic, it could end up making global wealth go down by 3 trillion dollars. Now, the IMF projects global wealth to go down 9 trillion dollars by the end of the pandemic. If we had been more prepared, we could have potentially stopped a lot of this from happening, not just including stopping the pandemic earlier, but also just saving people from losing huge quantities of money, and potentially valuable assets that are important to everyday life, getting new jobs, and more. Bill Gates had a Ted Talk back in 2015 about how we need to be more ready for the next epidemic, and one of the things that he said was the global wealth could go down by 3 trillion dollars. Now that the IMF suggests a 9 trillion loss through 2020 and 2021, we clearly should have listened to Bill Gates more and been more prepared for this disaster ahead of time.

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Bill Gates: The next outbreak? We're not ready

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In 2014, the world avoided a global outbreak of Ebola, thanks to thousands of selfless health workers -- plus, frankly, some very good luck. In hindsight, we know what we should have done better. So, now's the time, Bill Gates suggests, to put all our good ideas into practice, from scenario planning to vaccine research to health worker training.

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The global lockdown is the worst financial event in history since the Great Depression. According to the International Monetary Fund, the global lockdown is 2.9% more harmful than the global economic crisis of 2009. The global lockdown has cost millions of people their jobs, and because of how nobody was prepared, the people who lost their jobs ended up losing monumental things like their houses, cars, and more. The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 190 different countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, etc. according to the IMF themselves.

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The world has changed dramatically in the three months since our last update of the World Economic Outlook in January. A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost. As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.
April World Economic Outlook projects global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent.
This is a crisis like no other, and there is substantial uncertainty about its impact on people's lives and livelihoods. A lot depends on the epidemiology of the virus, the effectiveness of containment measures, and the development of therapeutics and vaccines, all of which are hard to predict. In addition, many countries now face multiple crises-a health crisis, a financial crisis, and a collapse in commodity prices, which interact in complex ways. Policymakers are providing unprecedented support to households, firms, and financial markets, and, while this is crucial for a strong recovery, there is considerable uncertainty about what the economic landscape will look like when we emerge from this lockdown.

Under the assumption that the pandemic and required containment peaks in the second quarter for most countries in the world, and recedes in the second half of this year, in the April World Economic Outlook we project global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent. This is a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points from January 2020, a major revision over a very short period. This makes the Great Lockdown the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

Assuming the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020 and that policy actions taken around the world are effective in preventing widespread firm bankruptcies, extended job losses, and system-wide financial strains, we project global growth in 2021 to rebound to 5.8 percent.

This recovery in 2021 is only partial as the level of economic activity is projected to remain below the level we had projected for 2021, before the virus hit. The cumulative loss to global GDP over 2020 and 2021 from the pandemic crisis could be around 9 trillion dollars, greater than the economies of Japan and Germany, combined.

This is a truly global crisis as no country is spared. Countries reliant on tourism, travel, hospitality, and entertainment for their growth are experiencing particularly large disruptions. Emerging market and developing economies face additional challenges with unprecedented reversals in capital flows as global risk appetite wanes, and currency pressures, while coping with weaker health systems, and more limited fiscal space to provide support. Moreover, several economies entered this crisis in a vulnerable state with sluggish growth and high debt levels.

For the first time since the Great Depression both advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are in recession. For this year, growth in advanced economies is projected at -6.1 percent. Emerging market and developing economies with normal growth levels well above advanced economies are also projected to have negative growth rates of -1.0 percent in 2020, and -2.2 percent if you exclude China. Income per capita is projected to shrink for over 170 countries. Both advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are expected to partially recover in 2021.
Alternative adverse scenarios
What I have described is a baseline scenario but, given the extreme uncertainty around the duration and intensity of the health crisis, we also explore alternative, more adverse scenarios. The pandemic may not recede in the second half of this year, leading to longer durations of containment, worsening financial conditions, and further breakdowns of global supply chains. In such cases, global GDP would fall even further: an additional 3 percent in 2020 if the pandemic is more protracted this year, while, if the pandemic continues into 2021, it may fall next year by an additional 8 percent compared to our baseline scenario.
Exceptional policy actions
Flattening the spread of COVID-19 using lockdowns allows health systems to cope with the disease, which then permits a resumption of economic activity. In this sense, there is no trade-off between saving lives and saving livelihoods. Countries should continue to spend generously on their health systems, perform widespread testing, and refrain from trade restrictions on medical supplies. A global effort must ensure that when therapies and vaccines are developed both rich and poor nations alike have immediate access.

While the economy is shut down, policymakers will need to ensure that people are able to meet their needs and that businesses can pick up once the acute phases of the pandemic pass. The large, timely, and targeted, fiscal, monetary, and financial policies already taken by many policymakers-including credit guarantees, liquidity facilities, loan forbearance, expanded unemployment insurance, enhanced benefits, and tax relief-have been lifelines to households and businesses. This support should continue throughout the containment phase to minimize persistent scars that could emerge from subdued investment and job losses in this severe downturn.

Policymakers must also plan for the recovery. As containment measures come off, policies should shift swiftly to supporting demand, incentivizing firm hiring, and repairing balance sheets in the private and public sector to aid the recovery. Fiscal stimulus that is coordinated across countries with fiscal space will magnify the benefit for all economies. Moratoria on debt repayments and debt restructuring may need to be continued during the recovery phase.

Multilateral cooperation is vital to the health of the global recovery. To support needed spending in developing countries, bilateral creditors and international financial institutions should provide concessional financing, grants, and debt relief. The activation and establishment of swap lines between major central banks has helped ease shortages in international liquidity, and may need to be expanded to more economies. Collaborative effort is needed to ensure that the world does not de-globalize, so the recovery is not damaged by further losses to productivity.

At the International Monetary Fund, we are actively deploying our 1-trillion-dollar lending capacity to support vulnerable countries, including through rapid-disbursing emergency financing and debt service relief to our poorest member countries, and we are calling on official bilateral creditors to do the same.

There are some hopeful signs that this health crisis will end. Countries are succeeding in containing the virus using social-distancing practices, testing, and contact tracing, at least for now, and treatments and vaccines may develop sooner than expected.

In the meantime, we face tremendous uncertainty around what comes next. Commensurate with the scale and speed of the crisis, domestic and international policy responses need to be large, rapidly deployed, and speedily recalibrated as new data becomes available. The courageous actions of doctors and nurses need to be matched by policymakers all over the world so we can jointly overcome this crisis.

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The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression

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The world has changed dramatically in the three months since our last update of the World Economic Outlook in January. A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost. As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown.

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When a new virus comes everyone should be prepared and wear a mask because it prevents people around them and in the public to get sick.

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According to CDC.GOV, As a family, you can plan and make decisions now that will protect you and your family during a COVID-19 outbreak. Prepare for possible illness and choose a room in your house that can be used to separate sick household. Being prepared prevents families from going out of their house for everyday needs. During the beginning of quarantine staying indoors was great and only one person could leave the house at a time and the houses that were prepared for ahead of time with toilet paper and napkins and paper towels, had it really well during the quarantine.

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According to Healthline simple face coverings or masks can reduce its spread. It recommends that people wear a face covering or mask to cover their nose and mouth when in the community. This is another public health measure people should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Mask s protect you from other people around you getting sick especially old people. The masks prevent your germs getting to other people and since it is deadly to some old people you should most definitely wear one near them. Some states don't usually wear them and the people that don’t need to see how many people die everyday due to this virus that could kill loved ones.

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When the United States experienced an outbreak of the swine flu in 2009, everyone was talking about how to reduce the spread of the virus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), vaccine availability was limited that year because the virus wasn't identified until manufacturers had already started producing the annual vaccine.

So, people started doing something most of us hadn't really seen before to stop transmission: wearing surgical face masks.

But with the recent spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, people are again looking to surgical face masks as a way of protecting themselves and others from the virus, which causes the disease COVID-19.

But does wearing a face mask really prevent the spread of viruses, such as the flu or SARS-CoV-2?

We'll look at recommendations from experts, unpack the research on which masks are most effective, and explain how to use masks properly.

In the case of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the notes that simple face coverings or masks can reduce its spread:

"CDC recommends that people wear a cloth face covering to cover their nose and mouth in the community setting. This is an additional public health measure people should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in addition to (not instead of) social distancing, frequent hand cleaning and other everyday preventive actions."

The recommends healthcare workers wear face masks when working with patients who have the flu.

The CDC also recommends patients who show signs of respiratory infections be given masks while they're in healthcare settings until they can be isolated.

If you're sick and need to be around others, properly wearing a mask can protect those around you from contracting your illness.

For many years, scientists weren't sure whether wearing a mask was effective at preventing the spread of viruses. However, recent studies suggest they can help.

One looked at how masks could help people with the seasonal flu limit spreading it when they exhale small droplets containing the virus. Overall, researchers found masks led to a more than threefold reduction in how much virus people sprayed into the air.

Another , analyzing data from thousands of Japanese schoolchildren, found that "vaccination and wearing a mask reduced the likelihood of developing seasonal influenza."

Importantly, researchers also that flu rates were lower when masks were paired with proper hand hygiene.

In other words, regular handwashing remains an essential tool in preventing the spread of viruses.

If you're considering wearing a mask to protect yourself against infections, there are three types you should know about.

Surgical face masks

Surgical face masks are fairly loose-fitting, disposable masks approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as medical devices. Doctors, dentists, and nurses often wear them while treating patients.

These masks prevent large droplets of bodily fluids that may contain viruses or other germs from escaping via the nose and mouth. They also protect against splashes and sprays from other people, such as those from sneezes and coughs.

But the average masks you can buy from a local drugstore aren't enough to filter out viruses.

For that purpose, experts recommend special masks with fine mesh that can capture very small organisms. These also have to be worn correctly for them to work.

Masks worn over the face are also unable to protect you from getting airborne virus particles, from a cough or sneeze, into your eyes.

Buy surgical face masks from Amazon or Walmart.

Respirators

Respirators, also called N95 respirator masks, are designed to protect the wearer from small particles in the air, like viruses. They're certified by the CDC and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The name comes from the fact that they can filter of airborne particles, according to the CDC. N95 masks are also often used when painting or handling potentially toxic materials.

Respirators are selected to fit your face. They must form a perfect seal so no gaps allow airborne viruses in. Healthcare workers use them to protect against airborne infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and anthrax.

Unlike regular face masks, respirators protect against both large and small particles.

Overall, respirators are considered much more effective at preventing the flu virus than regular face masks.

Still, studies have found benefits to both types of masks.

Buy N95 respirator masks from Amazon or Walmart.

Cloth face coverings or masks

Cloth face coverings or masks can be used in public settings, such as grocery stores, where you may be in close contact with others and it's difficult to maintain your distance.

They don't offer the same level of protection as surgical face masks or respirators. However, when worn by the public at large, they can still help reduce the community spread of viruses. This is because they help prevent people without symptoms from transmitting viruses via their respiratory droplets.

You can make your own at home using a few basic materials, such as cotton fabric, a T-shirt, or a bandana. The CDC includes instructions for sewing your own with a machine as well as two no-sew methods.

They should fit snugly against the face, covering both your nose and mouth. Also, use ties or ear loops to keep them secure.

When removing the cloth face mask, try to avoid touching your nose, mouth, and eyes.

Cloth face masks shouldn't be used by children under 2 years old, people who have trouble breathing, and people who are unable to remove their own masks.

While face masks can help reduce the spread of the flu and other respiratory viruses, they only do so if worn correctly and frequently.

Here are some guidelines for proper mask-wearing:

Wear a face mask when coming within 6 feet of a sick person.

Position the strings to keep the mask firmly in place over the nose, mouth, and chin. Try not to touch the mask again until you remove it.

Wear a face mask before going near other people if you have the flu.

If you have the flu and need to see a doctor, wear a face mask to protect others in the waiting area.

Consider wearing a mask in crowded settings if the flu is widespread in your community, or if you're at high risk for flu complications.

When you're done wearing a surgical face mask or respirator, throw it away and wash your hands. Never reuse it.

Wash your cloth face mask after each use.

When it comes to the flu, prevention is still the best method of keeping yourself safe from this highly contagious virus.

A face mask may offer added protection against getting sick. There are no known risks to wearing these devices, except for the cost of buying them.

While masks seem promising, it's also important to utilize other preventive measures, too.

Make sure you wash your hands often - especially if you're around others who may be sick. Also, be sure to get your annual flu shot to protect yourself and others from spreading the virus.

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If you buy something through a link on this page, we may earn a small commission. How this works. When the United States experienced an outbreak of the swine flu in 2009, everyone was talking about how to reduce the spread of the virus.