EDITORIAL - Recession

Economic performance during the coronavirus pandemic is an indicator of the effectiveness of the response to the public health crisis. Vietnam, for example, had quickly embarked on aggressive testing for coronavirus disease 2019, contact tracing and isolation, allowing the country to avoid prolonged widespread lockdowns and to continue many economic activities.

As of Aug. 5, Vietnam had 750 cases, with 392 recoveries and 10 deaths. The country was still affected by the unprecedented 55.8 percent plunge in its international tourism, which accounts for 6 percent of its gross domestic product, in the first six months of 2020. Still, Vietnam managed to register 0.36 percent GDP growth in the second quarter of the year. And the International Monetary Fund is seeing 2.7 percent growth for the country for 2020.

In contrast, the Philippines, which now has the highest number of COVID-19 infections in Southeast Asia, has seen its worst quarterly economic contraction since record keeping began. The country is now officially in recession, becoming one of the worst performing economies in the region during the pandemic.

With 123,000 coronavirus cases, 66,852 recoveries and 2,168 deaths as of Aug. 6, the Philippines is now described as the regional epicenter of COVID contagion. The cases have surged despite four months of economically crippling community quarantines and localized hard lockdowns. Officials attribute the high number of cases to what they describe as the country’s more extensive testing for COVID compared to many of its neighbors.

The challenge is to avoid becoming the regional laggard in recovering from the pandemic. Analysts have warned that with the country struggling to contain COVID-19, it looks headed for slow recovery compared with its neighbors. The country is seeing the difficulty of restarting the economy without sufficiently addressing the public health crisis. Sick people simply can’t go to work; sick people can infect co-workers and shut down an entire office or government agency.

Preventing a worse economic contraction will hinge on containing COVID-19. The recession should give more urgency to improving the pandemic response.