What last week looked like in the context of the pandemic, according to the main indicators:

Romania:

• New confirmed cases (10-day moving average) were on a downward trend, towards the April 2 low. Between May 10–17 this indicator fell by 24%. Equally important, Romania exited the state of emergency and entered a state of alert.
• The recovery rate continued to rise, approaching about 58% at the end of the week (an all-time high), up 12.7 percentage points compared with the previous week.
• Romania’s economy grew by 0.3% quarter on quarter in Q1 and by 2.4% year on year. The probability of avoiding a technical recession in 2020 is very high.

Global and in the EU:

• The daily growth rate of confirmed cases worldwide (10-day moving average) continued to decline towards the March 4 low (2.04%). The decrease is from 2.32%, by the end of next week.
• The recoveries-to-confirmed-cases ratio worldwide continued to trend higher, towards the highest level since March 18 (over 36%). This is up from 34% at the end of the previous week.
• In the US, the number of new confirmed cases (10-day moving average) reached the lowest since April 3, and the recoveries-to-confirmations ratio continued to rise towards around 18% on May 17.
• In Germany, indicators continued to improve last week: new confirmed cases (10-day moving average) decreased towards the March 16 low, and the recoveries-to-confirmations ratio increased to 87% (a record high).
• Looking at net cases — the day-to-day change on a 10-day moving average — there is broad-based improvement globally and in the US, Germany and Romania. Germany has posted negative readings since April 13, and in Romania the readings were negative for the 11th consecutive day on Sunday, which is a very good sign.
• In Italy and Spain, the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is declining towards the lowest level in the past two months.
• Italy is reopening shops, cafés, restaurants, hairdressers and museums as of today, May 18, and travel between regions will be permitted from June 3.

China:

• Macroeconomic indicators continued to improve. Retail sales, house prices and real-estate transactions picked up in April. These developments are also supported by measures implemented by the central bank and the government.

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