While pandemic is weakening in Western countries, other parts of the world are not as able to fight Covid-19, mainly because of the spread of the Delta variant. The currently weakest link in an otherwise strong global economic recovery is Asia which still suffers not only from the delta variant of Covid-19 but also production and export restrictions.
Due to the slower vaccination progress that is lagging behind the West, Asia is reaching a new pandemic peak and the Delta variant is also to blame. While 40% of the population in advanced economies has already been fully vaccinated, in emerging economies is less than 20%. Countries that are hit the hardest belong to Southeast Asia resulting in new social restrictions. You can read more about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Asian economy in the Wall Street Journal .
Figure 1: Number of deaths on COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic Source: Wikipedia Let’s stay in Asia for a while
Shares of Tencent and its competitors fell sharply after Chinese state newspapers criticized online gambling, raising fears that the companies' games might be included in greater state intervention and censorship. More info here .
It is important to mention that Tencent owns 48% of the American company Epic Games, which is not only responsible for the world-renowned Unreal Engine, the Epic Games Store launcher, which is almost the only competitor of Valve and their Steam store but it is also behind the extremely successful Fortnite brand.
Figure 2: Fortnite, source: Epic Games Cryptocurrency window
Let’s not forget cryptocurrencies. Article about state efforts to demonize cryptocurrencies at the expense of millions of users could grab your attention. Read it here .
Do you know what DAO abbreviation stands for? You can read about it in this article .
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