For most of the year, Japan has been hailed as something of a COVID success story. Given its densely populated cities, elderly population and proximity to China – the virus source – it had all the ingredients to be one of the worst affected nations. The reality has been anything but, with only limited spread…
The ‘scientific cavalry’, as Boris Johnson likes to put it, has arrived. The UK became the first western country to approve a COVID vaccine for mass use, and authorities are wasting no time rolling it out. 800,000 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s celebrated vaccine are expected to be available next week, with Britain’s most vulnerable…
As the world faces up to a not-so-jolly Christmas season, it may be surprising to learn that sentiment across the global economy was reported to be quite strong this week. Admittedly, this is mostly driven by strong manufacturing data and not the services sector, which relies so much more on social proximity. Nevertheless, the current…