Spike in Covid-19 cases takes toll on business recovery:NIBRI

The Japanese firm’s index tracks high-frequency indicators such as mobility, labour participation, and power consumption to assess post-pandemic recovery.

Apple driving index and Google’s retail and recreation indices have taken a hit, while workplace mobility continued to improve. Power demand fell by about 8.5% in the week versus demand of 4.2% in the prior week. Labour participation rate also fell to 39.8% from 40.6% previously.

It added that the situation was buffeted by the improving pace of vaccinations which presently covers about 1.5% of the country’s population, and due to the milder economic impact of second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic seen in other countries. “Second waves have typically been less economically disruptive,” it said.

India’s economy will get medium-term tailwinds from the lagged impact of easy financial conditions, front-loaded fiscal activism, strong global growth, the firm added.

The ‘vaccine pivot’ point should support real GDP growth of 13.5% y-o-y in FY22,” it said.

India started its vaccination program in mid-January with the plan to inoculate an initial group of 300 million people.

From March 1, the next phase of vaccination started where senior citizens and people with co-morbidities in the age bracket of 45-59 years would get vaccinated. Walk-ins to hospitals besides those having registered for the jabs would be covered. ET reported on Monday that the government may consider expanding the list of co-morbidities to make more people eligible for taking the vaccines.