Coronavirus (Covid-19) resources

After a brutal first six months of the year, governments across the world are hoping for an economic bounce-back. Rich-world gdp fell by about 10% in the first half of 2020. Yet much has changed since—including that more people are now wearing masks. Economists, obsessed with translating everything into gdp, wonder if more widespread face-covering could help the recovery.

Cybersecurity oversight is a key fiduciary responsibility for a board of directors and was a significant concern for companies even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced so many organizations to suddenly shift to remote work. Data breaches and other cyber threats pose significant competitive, reputational, and litigation risks and require increasingly costly investments to prevent, detect, and respond to. Changes in the environment as a result of the pandemic have created new risks that need to be managed with board oversight.

“It’s an intriguing approach that illustrates the type of novel approaches to scalable community testing that might be used as a community opens up,’’ Doherty Institute co-deputy director Mike Catton told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

A very useful, locally produced web site that provides daily information on the pandemic nationally.

A global shortage of one crucial piece of technology is causing delays in everything from cars and televisions to video game consoles and Australia’s National Broadband Network rollout.

"This has been a really strong evolution going from the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, to take fat out of the supply chain, to tighten down everything," says supply-chain management expert Rich Weissman. He says in the past 10 years companies have come to really rely on analytics to fine-tune supply chains to make sure that supply and demand absolutely line up. And that's where I think we've gone too far.”

The heavy dependence on China across industry verticals is an obvious example of the sole-sourced nature of today’s supply chains.

"It suggests that climate-related risks and pandemics such as Covid-19 have similarities. Both are massive global negative externalities and both are related to changes in our natural ecosystems. In addition to the extensive economic and financial damage they both produce, both directly affect human lives and thus could be classified as Green Swans. And, for both, there is a discrepancy between how scientists warn us about the quasi-certainty of their occurrence and how we fail to systematically consider their potentially huge costs and integrate them into risk frameworks and final prices."

Experiencing an exponential rise of COVID-19 related security cases during the pandemic, International SOS sheds light on three emerging security challenges. These are alongside underlying security issues that the pandemic environment has and will continue to exacerbate.

Chinese travellers account for about a fifth of all tourism spending, more than any other country, according to the U.N.’s World Tourism Organization.

Australia will deny entry to all travellers from mainland China unless they’re Australian citizens, amid growing fear surrounding the deadly coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced. While citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family, legal guardians and spouses will be excepted from the strict measures, Mr Morrison said anyone arriving from China will be required to self-isolate, as part of the stricter border approach.