In recent days authorities in e.g. Japan and Singapore have re-tightened the stance on Corona as a new case-spike was seen. Singaporean authorities weren’t fully able to explain why, which means that case-growth likely stems from people entering Singapore from the outside. This is a template of what e.g. European economies could be faced with as well. Case growth may start accelerating swiftly again, if the economies are not opened very carefully only, since only a small portion of the population has been Covid-19 positive so far. It gets increasingly visible (at least to us) that we will have to live with substantial restrictions in the West at the very least until the middle of Q3. And the Singaporean case also reveals that it is unlikely that freedom of movement will be normalized (to 2019 levels) across borders during 2020.

Chart 2: A sudden spike in cases in Singapore and Japan sparked a re-tightening of conditions

Norway and Denmark have now officially taken two differing strategies to the Corona fight. In Norway it was announced that the strategy is to keep the so-called R0 below 1 (meaning that a Corona patient spreads the virus to less than one person), which is designed to keep a sideways direction in the case and hospitalization trend intact. Should R0 surpass 1, then the Norwegian administration intends to shut down the economy again. Schools, small shops etc. will gradually re-open from late April. How do they intend to keep R0 below 1? Test, test, test, test! Asian style.

Denmark aims for a R0 of 1.2, which means that cases will be allowed to double every 15th day – this is within the limits of the increased capacity of the Danish healthcare system. Hospitalizations have started to drop in Denmark and the use of ICUs is currently only around 10% of max capacity. The Danish authorities now openly accepts to increase the spread of the virus. In hindsight they may have closed a little too early and a little too much. Better safe than sorry.

A larger % of the population is likely already Covid-19 positive in Sweden, due to the less draconian virus containment efforts. Sweden’s numbers are the worst in the Nordics on all parameters, but they have also chosen the relatively cheapest and most lasting strategy but likely also the riskiest (Sweden running at 70% of all ICU capacity currently). The rationale behind the Swedish strategy is that it can be kept intact for longer than e.g. the Danish and Norwegian strategies.

Sweden saw 114 fatal cases yesterday, which is likely linked to backloading of fatal cases from earlier days. The recent days fatal case data is out of sync with the amount of new daily cases at intensive care units. A daily fatal rate of around 50-55 would be more in line, unless fatal cases never reach hospitals.

Chart 3: A big spike in fatal cases in Sweden, likely partly as a result of backloading of data

Here is the total overview of Corona cases across the globe. Norway is still the Nordic (and almost) global front-runner on tests per capita. Fatal cases will remain high in France, Spain and in particular US the coming days due to the amount of people in intensive care currently..

We wish everyone a happy Easter under the circumstances. Stay safe.

Table 1: The global Corona overview