The indicators tracking the COVID-19 pandemic show the following trends globally and in Romania for the first week of June:

• The daily growth rate of confirmed cases worldwide (10-day moving average) continued to decline last week, to 1.892% on June 7 from 1.916% at the end of the previous week, near the early-March lows.
• The total number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic exceeded 7 million on June 7, with Brazil and India emerging as the new hotspots.
• The recovered-to-confirmed ratio worldwide continued to rise, up by roughly 2 percentage points from the end of May to almost 45%, the highest since March 15.
• In the US, the 10-day moving average of new confirmed cases rose by 3.6% between May 31 and June 7 to 22,061, the highest since May 24. The recovery rate continued to increase last week to 26.1% on June 7, up 1.2 percentage points from May 31. New York City reopened on June 8.
• In Germany, the 10-day moving average of new confirmed cases continued to decline last week to 355 on June 7 (the lowest since March 13), down 19% from May 31. The recovery rate rose by 0.9 percentage points over the first week of June, to 91.1%.
• In Romania, the number of new confirmed cases picked up in the second half of the week under review: the 10-day moving average was 169 on June 7, up 1% from May 31, but still close to the late-March lows. Sunday, June 7, was the 27th day in a row when the number of recoveries exceeded new confirmed cases. The authorities indicated they are waiting for developments in the second week of June before deciding whether to lift the state of alert — in force through June 15 — and to introduce further relaxation measures.
• Romania’s recovery rate continued to rise to over 71% on June 7; an increase of 2.6 percentage points from the previous Sunday.
• The US economy added over 2.5 million jobs in May, far exceeding analysts’ expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 13.3% from 14.7% in April.
• Germany launched a €130 billion package to support the economic recovery (3.8% of last year’s GDP).
• The European Central Bank increased the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) by €600 billion.

Dr. Andrei Radulescu, Head of Macroeconomic Research, Banca Transilvania