Author: Steve Tee

I sort of believe that Covid-19 will forever be with us because it will never go away. The reason why it will never go away its because of its nature. Virus can mutate and develop immunity to whatever you throw at it. It has a will on its own, similarly to human beings. We adapt, adjust and improve; so, does viruses. Bloomberg reports that Covid-19 cases are making a comeback in the Asian region, especially in India. On 16 April 2023, India Today reported that Delhi recorded a spike of 1,634 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours. With markets already opened up and people travelling worldwide, will this pose a threat of a lockdown recurrence? I hope not. WHO mentioned that a new variant named “Arcturus” was responsible for case surge in India. Delta, Omicron, XBB, now Arcturus; the evolution never stops because it has a will on its own.

In USA, we see further closure of giant companies and layoffs taking off at high speed. At article posting by MyMBACareer.com stated that Burger King shuts down 27 locations across US. Last week was McDonald’s and now BurgerKing. Who’s next? Taco Bell? Hundreds of jobs will be slashed due to this massive closure. The Washington Post written that last Friday’s number data was not good, as American spending dropped and manufacturing output dipped. Retail sales fall 1% in March and manufacturing production falls 0.5%, reported by Reuters.

Not popular in mainstream news outlets but frightening none the less. The Mirror reported that HSBC UK will close down 114 bank branches in 2023, Llyods will be closing approximately 62 bank branches in total, NatWest has scheduled 106 branches for closure this year, Barclays to shutdown 84 sites in 2023, Halifax to close 32 sites and Santander will close five. Hundreds of bank branches are closing and we can just make a guess how many layoffs will take place. A bank branch will have at least, on average, 50 staff. Multiply that with the hundreds of bank branch closure, you will get a monstrous amount of people jobless.