Google mobility data continues to paint an improving picture, with mobility and economic activity nudging higher again over the past week. And the breadth of improvement is encouraging too. There was a solid increase across Europe in particular, driven by Germany but France, Italy, Spain and the UK also moved positively. Developed Asia also fared well. There was a modest dip in Australia amid some short-term localised lockdowns, but the damage from pre-Covid levels is far milder here anyway.
Chart pack and analysis attached.
The past week hasn’t really seen any substantial shifts in activity, even if it’s increasingly clear that we’re past the worst as Covid cases continue to decline globally and the first signs of the vaccine impact start to percolate into the data. In the overall rankings, it is the Europeans that remain the most depressed compared to pre-pandemic levels of activity, with the UK languishing at the bottom of that league. Germany and France took a step back based on the data, while there was a further mild improvement in Spain and Italy.
Chart pack and analysis attached.
With the continued decline in new reported Covid cases globally, it is no surprise that we’ve started to see an improvement in overall activity levels. At least based on the Google data. Indeed, all but one of the countries in our sample recorded a week on week improvement. The worst was France and that was simply stable. Europe remains at the bottom of the pile in terms of overall activity, but the corner has certainly been turned and we’d expect to see this pick-up to extend and accelerate over the coming weeks.
Chart pack and analysis attached.
January’s Chinese credit numbers were rather robust and some way ahead of expectations. But this is the pre-Chinese New Year period where things can be a little less predictable and should be really taken together with February’s readings. And then we’ll have the added problems of adjusting for the impact of Covid last year.
Vaccination doses administered continue to rise by more than 30% a week. But still less than 10% of the population of rich countries have received a shot and less than 2% globally. The US and UK lead with 13% and 19% with the EU at 4% of people having had at least one shot. People who have been completely inoculated are still low — less than 2% globally — 1% in the EU, 0.75% in the UK and 2.77% in the US.
Another week of relative stability as measures to contain the pandemic remained static in most places. More draconian restrictions in Europe leave the region at the bottom end of the spectrum while EMs and Asia rate far better.
Chart pack and analysis attached.
Covid-19 vaccinations rising at a rate of around 40% per week. Not much difference between EU 38%, UK 30%, US 36%. Odd given vaccine wars! The percentage of the population vaccinated at least one time now stands at 1.2% globally, EU 2.7%, US 8.4%, UK 13%. While this is rising fast, this is still way short of herd immunity. And the percentage of the population fully vaccinated is still very low — less than 1% of the population everywhere except the US, Israel and a few small states (UK 0.7% and EU 0.4%).
