Home
Politics
ITEM said the economy would contract 4.5 percent this year, but if the A(H1N1) virus hit 50 percent of the British population and 0.4 percent of those affected died, it could shrink three percentage points more.
The economy could also fall a further 1.2 percent in 2010, the report said.
England's chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said last week that in a worst case scenario, around a third of Britain's population could be infected and 65,000 killed.
ITEM said production would be hit as an increasing number of employees take time off either to care for infected loves ones or because they themselves had contracted the virus.
"The main effect of such an epidemic on the supply side would be from employees staying off work because they or their dependents were ill," the report said.
"On the demand side, spending on discretionary goods and services such as restaurants, travel and tourism would be likely to fall as people stayed away from public places."
The warning comes after Britain's health minister said Monday the country will get its first batch of vaccines in August, with enough to vaccinate half the population by 2010.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham also said that as of Thursday last week, there were 652 people in hospital suffering from swine flu, 53 of them in critical care.
Twenty-nine people with the virus have died in Britain with estimates last week of 55,000 new cases of swine flu.
A study last week by Oxford Economics in Britain said the global swine flu pandemic could tip the world into deflation, stalling economies just as they struggle to recover from the financial crisis.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The economy could also fall a further 1.2 percent in 2010, the report said.
England's chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said last week that in a worst case scenario, around a third of Britain's population could be infected and 65,000 killed.
ITEM said production would be hit as an increasing number of employees take time off either to care for infected loves ones or because they themselves had contracted the virus.
"The main effect of such an epidemic on the supply side would be from employees staying off work because they or their dependents were ill," the report said.
"On the demand side, spending on discretionary goods and services such as restaurants, travel and tourism would be likely to fall as people stayed away from public places."
The warning comes after Britain's health minister said Monday the country will get its first batch of vaccines in August, with enough to vaccinate half the population by 2010.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham also said that as of Thursday last week, there were 652 people in hospital suffering from swine flu, 53 of them in critical care.
Twenty-nine people with the virus have died in Britain with estimates last week of 55,000 new cases of swine flu.
A study last week by Oxford Economics in Britain said the global swine flu pandemic could tip the world into deflation, stalling economies just as they struggle to recover from the financial crisis.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
