World Coronavirus Dispatch: Oil market emerges from the depths of pandemic

Vaccine-driven spike in Indonesia's wealthy set likely, foes turn friends in pharma world, WHO reports 20% drop in worldwide deaths and other pandemic-related news across the globe

Indonesia to see sharpest surge in wealthy people

Fuelled by the vaccination-based recovery, Indonesia is set to see a 67 per cent growth surge in the number of people becoming high net worth individuals over the period of five years through 2025, according to a Knight-Frank report. Indonesia's surge comfortably beats China, which is seventh on the list with an expected 46 per cent rise in the wealthy. India takes the second spot with a projected annual growth rate of 63 per cent over the next five years. Poland, Sweden, France and New Zealand take up third through sixth spots. Victoria Garrett, head of residential for Asia-Pacific at Knight Frank says: "while Covid slowed the world's economic momentum, the Asia-Pacific overall has adapted well to new trends and opportunities, strengthening its foothold as a wealth hub." Read here

Let's look at the global statistics

Global infections: 112,116,627

Global deaths: 2,485,601

Nations with most cases: US (28,261,585), India (11,030,176), Brazil (10,257,875), United Kingdom (4,146,756), Russia (4,142,126).

Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center 

Oil market bounces back from Covid depths

On the back of vaccination hopes, oil market is fast emerging from the depths of the pandemic. After reaching negative levels last year on demand-related concerns, West Texas reached $60 per barrel this month at one point of time. That is an increase of over 60 per cent from october last year. On April 20, last year the WTI benchmark fell to as low as minus $37.63 a barrel on bets that the pandemic would decimate global oil demand. Experts say governments spending, including the $1.9 trillion stimulus of Joe Biden, output cuts from leading oil producers are sustaining current price levels. OPEC-plus has since January reduced oil production by 7.2 million barrels a day, around 7% of global demand. Read here

Rivals make unsual alliances to produce vaccines

Some of the hottest corporate battles across the world would take place, usually, in the pharma industry, with drugmakers competing for cancer and other drugs. However, that was before Covid. The pandemic has forced pharma giants to forge unsual alliances with rivals to produce more vaccine doses. Sanofi recently agreed to help make a vaccine from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech after Sanofi’s experimental Covid-19 shot suffered a five-month setback. Novartis also agreed to help Pfizer and BioNTech produce more doses, while Baxter International and Endo International have agreed to help Novavax produce its shot. These collaborations, however short-term and unsual, will boost the global vaccination output as governments seek more and more doses. Read here

WHO reports 20 per cent drop in global deaths

In a significant downturn, the world health organization said global coronavirus deaths have declined by 20 per cent compared to the last week. This coincides with the decline in cases across the world. According to the WHO, nearly 66,000 coronavirus-related deaths were reported last week, marking the third straight week of drop. The number of new cases also dropped by 11 percent for the sixth consecutive week, the agency said, taking the total number of coronavirus cases to more than 110 million since the start of the pandemic. Read here