BWorld, After two years of lockdown, what have we achieved?
* My article in BusinessWorld last March 14. ------------ After two years of lockdown, what have we achieved? This coming Wednesday, the Philippines will mark the second anniversary of the lockdown imposed by the government on March 16, 2020. It was supposed to be a temporary “two weeks only to flatten the curve” enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). The two weeks became two months of modified ECQ (MECQ), which became two years of ECQ, MECQ, general CQ (GCQ), modified GCQ (MGCQ), and Alert levels 1 to 5. So, have we “flattened the curve” of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the Philippines and other countries? Or has the law of unintended consequences kicked in again? Here are 10 observations and facts from the two years of lockdown. One, the Philippine economy was flattened. It suffered the worst, deepest economic performance since post-WW2 with a 9.6% GDP contraction in 2020. Of the top 50 largest economies in the world by GDP size, the five worst performing economies in 2020 were Spain w...