Journey through Covid-19

19 December 2020 New Year is coming Two weeks to New Year 2021. Countdown has started for me.

2020 has been a horrid year with Covid-19 pandemic impacting our lives. Could we look past it and start 2021 with hope of a better year?

The negatives include: 1. More infection cases of Covid-19 are still happening in most countries. The number of coronavirus cases globally topped 75.9 million. Number of deaths was 1.68 million people (Worldometer 19 December 00.57 GMT) 2. The International Monetary Fund projected a global contraction of -4.4% in GDP growth for the whole of 2020. (IMF October Report).

3. Singapore economy is forecasted to contract between 6.0% and 6.5%. (Source: MTI) Bonuses are being cut or frozen. This affects many businesses from retail sales to food & beverage sector.

4. The job outlook in Singapore still looks grim. Number of retrenched employees rose to 9,120 for Quarter 3. (Q2 was 8,130 retrenched employees) Unemployment rate for Singapore citizens was 4.9% based on October numbers. Ratio of job vacancies to unemployed persons was 0.6 for September. (6 jobs for 10 unemployed) This means a shortfall of job vacancies.

The positives include: 1. Covid-19 vaccines are being rolled out in some countries to inoculate people against the virus.

2. Joe Biden is the President-elect to replace Donald Trump in 2021.

3. The world has now the experience to tackle Covid-19. The community cases are low in Singapore.