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Parts of Australia are waking up to a very different reality this morning, as the states and territories take control of when lockdown measures will be rolled back. Now we have already seen some restrictions eased over the weekend. But it's still unclear what will happen in Victoria, which currently has the strictest lockdown rules in place. There's also movement on the schools front, with some students in Queensland and New South Wales starting to transition back to face-to-face learning from this morning.
A leading forecaster says unemployment is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels until late 2024. Deloitte Access Economics predicts the federal government will have huge budget deficits of more than 130 billion dollars this year and next. But in it's latest budget monitor bulletin, the forecaster indicates both federal and state governments may have to maintain their large spending simply in order to prop up the economy until business and consumer confidence returns.
More than four million people around the world have now tested positive to the virus. The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic started, has reported its first new case of COVID-19 in more than a month. While the number of new cases has dropped significantly in Australia and New Zealand and even in virus hot spots like Spain and Italy — other countries like Russia and Brazil are now recording significant increases. More than two hundred and eighty thousand people have died worldwide.
