Introduction-Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown On The Global Economy) 100% GRADE SCORE

Introduction-Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown On The Global Economy) 100% GRADE SCORE Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background On December 31, 2019, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) made the assessment that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic (WHO, 2020). Up until recently, the pandemic hit Europe and Americas hardest measured by number of confirmed cases. The health crisis not only caused a tragically large number of human lives being lost, but also dealt heavy blows to market confidence and economic activity. The magnitude and speed of contraction in economic activities that have followed is unlike anything experienced in lifetimes. Rising fears and global economic shutdown caused financial markets to seize up and dive deep. Global stock market crashed from the record highs and reported their largest one-week declines since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). US oil prices turned negative for the first time on record after oil producers ran out of space to store the oversupply of crude left by the coronavirus crisis as well as by the failure in negotiations on production curtailment between Saudi Arabia and Russia, triggering an historic market collapse which left oil traders reeling. The price of US crude oil crashed from $18 a barrel to –US$38 in a matter of hours, as rising stockpiles of crude threatened to overwhelm storage facilities and forced oil producers to pay buyers to take the barrels they could not store. The market crash underlined the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on oil demand as the global economy slumps (Dutta et al., 2020).