University of Syndey: “How is COVID-19 impacting people and the planet and what are the implications for a post-pandemic world? This world-first study led by the University of Sydney quantifies the socio-economic losses and environmental gains. The first comprehensive study of the pandemic shows consumption losses amount to more than US$3.8 trillion, triggering full-time equivalent job losses of 147 million and the biggest-ever drop in greenhouse gas emissions. The international group of researchers, using a global and highly detailed model, found that most directly hit was the travel sector and regions of Asia, Europe, the United States, with cascading multiplier effects across the entire world economy because of globalisation. The loss of connectivity imposed to prevent the virus spreading triggers an economic ‘contagion’, causing major disruptions to trade, tourism, energy and finance sectors, while easing environmental pressures most in some of the hardest-hit areas. This study focuses on ‘live’ data to 22 May (with the exception of air travel, for which only a 12-month forecast exists), differing from most assessments of the economic impacts of the pandemic based on scenario analyses and/or projections – and it is the first to provide an overview of the combined economic, social and environmental impacts, including indirect effects, of the coronavirus. The findings publish today in the international scientific journal PLOS ONE — Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the Coronavirus pandemic.”