UK 2Q GDP Falls Way More Than Forecast. H1N1 To Re-tank World GDP?
Annual UK GDP Falls By Most In Modern Record
CNBC
UK Economy Shrinks Much More than Expected
Britain's economy shrank more than twice as fast as expected in the second quarter of 2009 to register its biggest annual decline on record, dashing hopes of a speedy recovery from the worst recession in nearly 30 years.
GDP fell 0.8 percent in the three months to June [3.2% annualized rate] and by 5.6 percent lower on the year, the steepest yearly fall since similar records began in 1955, official data showed on Friday as Britain became the first G7 country to report Q2 data.
"These are awful, awful numbers," said Ross Walker, UK economist at RBS Financial Markets. "It casts doubt on whether we will actually see growth in Q3."
..."We would still tend to the view that the economy will expand in the second half of the year but these figures introduce some uncertainty to that outlook," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec.
The UK economy has now shrunk for five consecutive quarters with a cumulative decline of 5.7 percent - more than double the drop seen in the early 1990s recession and not far off the 6.0 percent contraction experienced in [three year-long recession of the] early 1980s.
Analysts said government forecasts of the economy shrinking by around 3.5 percent this year - which would be the worst outturn since the Second World War - were looking very optimistic, putting more pressure on strained public finances.
"For this to now happen would require a remarkable bounce-back in the second half of the year with growth of around 1.5 percent [6.0% annualized rates] in each of the remaining two quarters," said Richard Snook, senior economist at the Centre of Economic and Business Research...
Related - H1N1 Already Hitting Britain Hard
CNBC
Britain, major travel hub, hard hit by flu pandemic
The global H1N1 flu pandemic is hitting Britain harder than other European countries, mainly because Britain is a hub for international travel and communications, health experts said on Thursday.
Some 31 people have died in Britain from the virus, compared with only four in Spain and none in the rest of the European Union, but experts warn that the H1N1 flu wave now hitting Britain is likely to sweep through other countries soon.
In the past week 100,000 suspected new cases of the flu have been reported in Britain, the government said, nearly double the 55,000 suspected new cases in the previous week.
Other European countries should prepare for a similar, or even larger, surge in the number of cases in the coming months, said Professor Angus Nicholl of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm.
"Look at the UK. This is what you are going to have to face later in the year, but with a lot more cases than the UK is seeing at the moment," Nicholl told Reuters...
TIME
Think H1N1 Is Bad Now? Wait Till Flu Season
When the World Health Organization announced on July 16 that it would stop issuing global counts of confirmed cases of the H1N1/09 virus (the new WHO-approved name differentiates the virus from older versions of H1N1), it wasn't because the disease had burned out. Far from it...
The real test will come in the fall, however, when the Northern Hemisphere's flu season returns with a vengeance. (Southern Hemisphere nations are currently in the early weeks of their flu season, and H1N1/09 has caused real trouble in Argentina, which has more than 130 confirmed deaths - second only to the U.S.) There is always a chance that the virus could become more virulent when it returns in the fall - just as the deadly 1918 pandemic did...
In Britain, the hardest-hit country in Europe, the government's chief medical officer caused a brief stir last week when he said that the National Health Service was preparing for a worst-case scenario of 65,000 deaths from the flu next winter...
The biggest question will be what to do about schools. Because the virus has struck the young at such unusually high levels - some 60% of the world's confirmed cases have occurred in people age 18 or younger - schools have become a major locus of infection. Outbreaks incubate among children in schools, then spread to the community when those kids go home. A study in the journal Lancet found that closing schools as a preventive measure in the early stages of a pandemic could sharply cut the number of cases initially, which would reduce the later surges of infections that can overwhelm hospitals.
But that would come at a cost - the Lancet researchers also estimated that a 12-week school closure could cost the U.S. as much as 6% of its GDP, and the burden would fall disproportionately on working families with few options for child care...
CNBC
UK Economy Shrinks Much More than Expected
Britain's economy shrank more than twice as fast as expected in the second quarter of 2009 to register its biggest annual decline on record, dashing hopes of a speedy recovery from the worst recession in nearly 30 years.
GDP fell 0.8 percent in the three months to June [3.2% annualized rate] and by 5.6 percent lower on the year, the steepest yearly fall since similar records began in 1955, official data showed on Friday as Britain became the first G7 country to report Q2 data.
"These are awful, awful numbers," said Ross Walker, UK economist at RBS Financial Markets. "It casts doubt on whether we will actually see growth in Q3."
..."We would still tend to the view that the economy will expand in the second half of the year but these figures introduce some uncertainty to that outlook," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec.
The UK economy has now shrunk for five consecutive quarters with a cumulative decline of 5.7 percent - more than double the drop seen in the early 1990s recession and not far off the 6.0 percent contraction experienced in [three year-long recession of the] early 1980s.
Analysts said government forecasts of the economy shrinking by around 3.5 percent this year - which would be the worst outturn since the Second World War - were looking very optimistic, putting more pressure on strained public finances.
"For this to now happen would require a remarkable bounce-back in the second half of the year with growth of around 1.5 percent [6.0% annualized rates] in each of the remaining two quarters," said Richard Snook, senior economist at the Centre of Economic and Business Research...
Related - H1N1 Already Hitting Britain Hard
CNBC
Britain, major travel hub, hard hit by flu pandemic
The global H1N1 flu pandemic is hitting Britain harder than other European countries, mainly because Britain is a hub for international travel and communications, health experts said on Thursday.
Some 31 people have died in Britain from the virus, compared with only four in Spain and none in the rest of the European Union, but experts warn that the H1N1 flu wave now hitting Britain is likely to sweep through other countries soon.
In the past week 100,000 suspected new cases of the flu have been reported in Britain, the government said, nearly double the 55,000 suspected new cases in the previous week.
Other European countries should prepare for a similar, or even larger, surge in the number of cases in the coming months, said Professor Angus Nicholl of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm.
"Look at the UK. This is what you are going to have to face later in the year, but with a lot more cases than the UK is seeing at the moment," Nicholl told Reuters...
TIME
Think H1N1 Is Bad Now? Wait Till Flu Season
When the World Health Organization announced on July 16 that it would stop issuing global counts of confirmed cases of the H1N1/09 virus (the new WHO-approved name differentiates the virus from older versions of H1N1), it wasn't because the disease had burned out. Far from it...
The real test will come in the fall, however, when the Northern Hemisphere's flu season returns with a vengeance. (Southern Hemisphere nations are currently in the early weeks of their flu season, and H1N1/09 has caused real trouble in Argentina, which has more than 130 confirmed deaths - second only to the U.S.) There is always a chance that the virus could become more virulent when it returns in the fall - just as the deadly 1918 pandemic did...
In Britain, the hardest-hit country in Europe, the government's chief medical officer caused a brief stir last week when he said that the National Health Service was preparing for a worst-case scenario of 65,000 deaths from the flu next winter...
The biggest question will be what to do about schools. Because the virus has struck the young at such unusually high levels - some 60% of the world's confirmed cases have occurred in people age 18 or younger - schools have become a major locus of infection. Outbreaks incubate among children in schools, then spread to the community when those kids go home. A study in the journal Lancet found that closing schools as a preventive measure in the early stages of a pandemic could sharply cut the number of cases initially, which would reduce the later surges of infections that can overwhelm hospitals.
But that would come at a cost - the Lancet researchers also estimated that a 12-week school closure could cost the U.S. as much as 6% of its GDP, and the burden would fall disproportionately on working families with few options for child care...