Tag Archives: Pandemic

More than half of world’s airline pilots no longer flying: survey

(Reuters) – More than half of the world’s airline pilots are no longer flying for a living amid the plunge in demand during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey, and those that are still flying feel less valued by their employers.

A poll of nearly 2,600 pilots by UK-based GOOSE Recruitment and industry publication FlightGlobal, released on Thursday, found only 43% were doing the job they had trained for, with 30% unemployed, 17% furloughed and 10% in non-flying roles.

Many pilots that are still flying have faced deteriorating working conditions. Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, for example, instituted permanent pay cuts of up to 58%, and Turkish Airways and Singapore Airlines Ltd have temporarily lowered salaries.

“We can see the effect the pandemic has had on employed pilots too,” GOOSE Recruitment chief executive officer and founder Mark Charman said in a statement. “Large numbers are feeling insecure about their jobs, an increased number are planning to look for new roles this year as well as many feeling less valued by their employers.”

For the unemployed pilots in the survey, 84% said it was due to the pandemic. Before COVID-19 hit, there had been widespread pilot shortages that had driven up demand for aviators and led to improving pay and conditions.

Now, 82% of unemployed pilots would take a pay cut for a new opportunity, the survey found.

For those that have kept their jobs, pilots in Europe reported being the most stressed by COVID-19, with respondents citing the risk of catching the virus, disjointed rules and the possibility of being placed in quarantine during a rotation as among their concerns.

Forty percent of pilots said their mental health had been affected by the pandemic, with the figure higher among younger pilots.

“The amount of stress and anxiety the pandemic has caused me has permanently scarred my outlook on life,” one surveyed pilot said.

(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Sydney. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

WHO team in Wuhan probing COVID-19 origins moves out of quarantine

By Gabriel Crossley

WUHAN, China (Reuters) – A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic left its quarantine hotel in Wuhan on Thursday to begin field work, two weeks after arriving in the Chinese city where the virus emerged in late 2019.

The mission has been plagued by delays, concern over access and bickering between China and the United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticized the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research.

“Thanks, Chinese Health Minister Ma Xiaowei, for a frank discussion on the #COVID19 virus origins mission,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted.

“I asked that the international scientists get the support, access & data needed, and the chance to engage fully with their Chinese counterparts.”

The WHO has not provided details of the mission’s itinerary, although team leader Peter Ben Embarek said in November that the group would likely go to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first known cluster of cases was traced.

The team, made up of independent experts, is due to remain for two more weeks in China, which has used stringent measures, including drastically curtailing international arrivals, to curb the spread of the coronavirus. China has been battling a series of local outbreaks over the past month.

“During the second 14 days, the team will be able to go out under strict medical supervision, continuous testing and the restrictive measures,” Hans Kluge, the WHO’s European regional director, told a news conference from Copenhagen on Thursday.

He said the first two weeks had been productive.

“The team members have been prepared by counterparts in China in different fields, there have been, every day, many, many hours of presentations and exchange of data,” he said.

After leaving their quarantine hotel shortly after 3 p.m. (0700 GMT) without speaking to journalists, team members boarded a bus to a lakeside hotel, where a portion of the building and grounds were cordoned off.

Several team members described long work days during their quarantine, and relief at being able to leave their rooms.

“Slightly sad to say goodbye to my ‘gym’ & my ‘office’ where I’ve been holed up for last 2 wks!!,” team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter, along with photos of exercise equipment and a desk in his hotel room.

The team members’ luggage, loaded onto the bus by workers in protective suits, included yoga mats and what appeared to be a guitar case.

SCIENCE AND POLITICS

The WHO has sought to manage expectations for the investigation.

“There are no guarantees of answers,” WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan told reporters this month. “It is a difficult task to fully establish the origins and sometimes it can take two or three or four attempts to be able to do that in different settings.”

China’s foreign ministry said the team would participate in seminars, visits and field trips.

“All these activities must be in accordance with the principle of tracking the origin scientifically and with the ultimate goal of preventing future risks and protecting the safety and health of the people,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing on Thursday.

The origin of COVID-19 has been highly politicized.

The investigating team had been set to arrive in Wuhan earlier in January, and China’s delay of their visit drew rare public criticism from the head of the WHO, which former U.S. President Donald Trump accused of being “China-centric” early in the outbreak.

China has been pushing a narrative that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, with state media citing the presence of the virus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers saying it had been circulating in Europe in 2019.

China’s foreign ministry has also hinted on several occasions that the sudden closure of a U.S. army laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland in July 2019 was linked to the pandemic.

Wuhan resident Tu Zhengwang, 28, said it was not certain that the virus had originated in the city.

“It could be other places,” he said. “But if you find the origin, whether it is in Wuhan or other places, you could prevent similar incidents from happening.”

(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley in Wuhan; Additional reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)

Norway to close borders to all but essential visits, says PM

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway will close its borders to all but essential visitors, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Wednesday, tightening further some of the toughest travel restrictions in Europe.

“In practice, the border will be closed to anyone not living in Norway,” Solberg told a news conference.

While exceptions will apply to a few groups, including health workers from some countries, most migrant labor will be prevented from coming, she said.

“What we see is that the mutated virus has spread significantly in many countries that do not monitor the extent of mutations in the same way as Norway, Denmark and Britain do,” said Solberg of the reasons why the latest measures were introduced.

The non-EU country on Saturday announced a lockdown of its capital region after an outbreak of a more contagious coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain.

Among the measures introduced on Jan 23., non-essential stores in and around Oslo are currently closed for the first time in the pandemic.

Norway is seeing declining levels of infections by the coronavirus however, said Solberg. The county’s reproduction rate, which indicates how many people on average an infected person transmits the virus to, stands at 0.6, she added.

Norway has one of the lowest rates of new infections in Europe per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

While sailors on merchant ships are still permitted to travel, the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association (NSA) questioned the prime minister’s plan.

“This will be very challenging,” NSA Chief Executive Harald Solberg said.

“We need rapid decisions on, and improvements to, compensations for all those who will now face the consequences,” he said.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Fed likely to leave support in place for struggling U.S. economy

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve is expected to keep monetary policy locked in crisis-fighting mode on Wednesday as the U.S. central bank assesses an economy still struggling through the shock of a pandemic but looking forward to relief from a vaccination campaign and another government aid package.

The Fed, which will release its latest policy statement at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT), has used its recent meetings to roll out significant changes, linking any future increase in interest rates to a persistent rise in inflation, and tying any change in its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases to “substantial further progress” on its employment and inflation targets.

If anything, economic data since Fed officials met in the middle of December has been disappointing, and analysts say policymakers will likely fend off any suggestion that the economic boost from vaccines or a possible surge in inflation this spring will cause them to waver on the promise of continued loose monetary policy.

Major U.S. stock indexes were down about 1% in mid-morning trading, with analysts attributing the fall to concerns that vaccinations may not roll out as fast – or allow the economy to reopen as soon – as initially expected.

U.S. bond yields also dropped and a measure of longer-term market inflation expectations fell towards the Fed’s 2% target after a recent rise, evidence the recovery has not gained full traction and a pullback that, if sustained, would worry the central bank.

Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics, said she, like many economists, anticipates a “mini-boom” beginning in the spring as more of the U.S. population is vaccinated against the virus, people feel freer to travel and spend, and the Biden administration’s own spending plans move forward.

About 25 million people had received at least one of the required two doses of vaccine as of Sunday, and President Joe Biden hopes to boost the pace of daily shots to 1.5 million. He has requested an additional $1.9 trillion in government spending to speed up the vaccinations and expand benefits to U.S. businesses, workers and families hard hit by the pandemic.

Though that could fuel faster economic growth, Fed Chair Jerome “Powell will maintain his dovish tone for now,” by noting that inflation remains below the central bank’s 2% annual target and employment is still about 10 million short of its pre-pandemic level, Bostjancic wrote.

Powell is scheduled to hold a news conference half an hour after the release of the policy statement.

INFLATION TALK

Since approval of the first coronavirus vaccines in December, Fed officials have shared a general view that the U.S. economy was likely entering what one called the “endgame” of the pandemic, marked by short-term risks but likely buoyant growth in the second half of the year.

Fed policymakers, however, also have noted the large hole left in the economy, particularly the job market, after a year in which activity crashed spectacularly and then only partially rebounded. The United States actually lost jobs in December.

Many of the steps the Fed took last spring in response to the onset of recession, including slashing interest rates to zero, are now expected to remain in place for a potentially extended period of time – with policymakers not anticipating the need to raise rates for perhaps three years.

That’s designed to help push the economy onto a path of both higher employment and one that meets, after years of misses, the central bank’s 2% inflation goal.

Investors appear to have taken the Fed’s higher inflation talk seriously. The expected inflation rate over the longer term as measured by Treasury securities indexed for inflation has moved above 2%. Fed officials also have begun laying the foundation to ignore what’s expected to be a spike in prices this spring and summer, spurred by faster economic activity but also distorted by comparison to weak prices last year.

“The rebound in market-based inflation compensation measures will not alarm the Fed,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics. “Instead, Fed officials are more likely to view the rise as a welcome vindication of the tweaks they made to the policy framework.”

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Paul Simao)

UK plans tough new border measures to combat coronavirus

By William James and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will announce new tougher border measures on Wednesday to stop new variants of COVID-19 getting into the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as he promised to deliver a roadmap out of lockdowns that have shuttered much of the economy.

The government is expected to bring in quarantine hotels for those coming to Britain from high-risk countries where new strains of the coronavirus have emerged – so-called red list nations – such as South Africa and those in South America.

The move comes as Britain’s death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 100,000, the first European state to reach that figure, leading to further questions about Johnson’s handling of the crisis.

“The Home Secretary (interior minister) will be setting out later today…even tougher measures for those red list countries where we are particularly concerned about new variants,” Johnson told parliament when asked about plans to strengthen Britain’s borders.

Britain saw infections soar at the end of last year after a highly-contagious new variant that emerged in southeast England surged through the population, taking cases and later deaths to record levels.

Since the start of January, all the United Kingdom has faced lockdowns which have closed schools, pubs and restaurants to all bar takeaways with the public told they must stay home as much as possible.

Johnson and his ministers have faced repeated questions, including from many in his own party, on when measures would be eased especially with regard to school closures. He told lawmakers he would address that issue later on Wednesday when he is due to host a media conference.

“Then in the course of the next few weeks, assuming the vaccine rollout continues well, assuming we don’t find new variants of concern…I will be setting out a broader roadmap for the way forward for the whole country,” he said.

With 100,162 recorded deaths, Britain has the world’s fifth highest toll from COVID-19 and the highest deaths per 100,000 people in the world.

Johnson said he felt deep sorrow about the loss of life when the figures were announced on Tuesday, but said the government had done everything it could.

Asked repeatedly by the leader of the Labor opposition Keir Starmer why Britain had fared so badly, he said there would be a time to learn the lessons of what happened but “I don’t think that moment is now” when 37,000 people were still in hospital suffering from the virus.

“There are no easy answers, perpetual lockdown is no answer,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Global COVID-19 cases surpass 100 million as nations tackle vaccine shortages

By Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham

(Reuters) – Global coronavirus cases surpassed 100 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as countries around the world struggle with new virus variants and vaccine shortfalls.

Almost 1.3% of the world’s population has now been infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and more than 2.1 million people have died.

One person has been infected every 7.7 seconds, on average, since the start of the year. Around 668,250 cases have been reported each day over the same period, and the global fatality rate stands at 2.15%.

The worst-affected countries – the United States, India, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom – make up more than half all reported COVID-19 cases but represent 28% of the global population, according to a Reuters analysis.

It took the world 11 months to record the first 50 million cases of the pandemic, compared to just three months for cases to double to 100 million.

Around 56 countries have begun vaccinating people for the coronavirus, administering at least 64 million doses. Israel leads the world on per capita vaccinations, inoculating 29% of its population with at least one dose.

UNITED STATES

With over 25 million cases, the United States has 25% of all reported COVID cases although it accounts for just 4% of the world’s population. The United States leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, accounting for one in every five deaths reported worldwide each day. With just under 425,00 fatalities, the United States has reported almost twice as many deaths as Brazil, which has the second-highest death toll in the world.

As the worst-affected region in the world, Europe is currently reporting a million new infections about every four days and has reported nearly 30 million since the pandemic began. Britain on Tuesday reached 100,000 deaths.

The Eastern European region, including countries like Russia, Poland and Ukraine, contribute to nearly 10% of all global COVID-19 cases.

Despite securing deals for vaccine supplies early on, many European countries are facing delays in shipments from both Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc.

ASIA AND AFRICA

In India, the nation with the second-highest number of cases, infections are decreasing, with almost 13,700 new infections reported on average each day – around 15% of its peak. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday India was completely self-reliant on coronavirus vaccine supplies as the world’s second-most populous country inoculated more than 1 million people within a week of starting its campaign.

China, which recently marked the first anniversary of the world’s first coronavirus lockdown in the central city of Wuhan, is facing its worst wave of local cases since March last year.

As richer nations race ahead with mass vaccination campaigns, Africa is still scrambling to secure supplies as it grapples with concerns about more-infectious variants of the virus first identified in South Africa and Britain.

According to the Reuters tally, African countries have nearly 3.5 million cases and over 85,000 deaths.

The South African variant, also known as 501Y.V2, is 50% more infectious and has been detected in at least 20 countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden will impose a ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa starting Saturday in a bid to contain the spread of a new variant of COVID-19.

Australia and New Zealand have fared better than most other developed economies during the pandemic through swift border closures, lockdowns, strict hotel quarantine for travelers and widespread testing and social distancing.

“We have the virus under control here in Australia, but we want to roll out the vaccine,” Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told a news conference on Sunday.

(Reporting by Shaina Ahluwalia and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Jane Wardell)

France’s new COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU treatments rise sharply

PARIS (Reuters) – The number of people hospitalized in France for COVID-19 rose by more than a 1,000 over the last two days, a trend unseen since Nov 16, and the number of patients in intensive care units for the disease exceeded 3,000 for the first time since Dec 9.

A growing number of medical experts have called for a third lockdown in France but French media report that President Emmanuel Macron is trying to avoid such a measure.

Macron hopes a 6 p.m. curfew put in place 10 days ago will be enough to rein in the surge in new infections prompted by the emergence of more contagious variants of the virus.

Getting the number of patients treated in ICUs for COVID-19 below the 3,000 limit was the main justification for replacing the second lockdown with the national curfew on Dec 15.

At 3,041, the ICU total is less than half its all time high of 7,148 on April 4, but has grown almost every day since Jan 7.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Bloomberg Television that a new lockdown would make it very difficult for the country to reach its 2021 target of 6% economic growth.

The government had also aimed to bring the average new daily cases below 5,000 before lifting the second lockdown. After a 54,440 high on Nov 7, the seven-day moving average of daily new infections, which averages out reporting irregularities, fell to 10,348 on Dec 4 but is now at a two-month high of 20,447.

The daily tally of new COVID infections was 4,240 on Monday, down from Sunday’s 18,346 but higher than last Monday’s 3,736. France’s cumulative total of cases now stands at 3,057,857, the sixth-highest in the world.

The country’s COVID-19 death toll was up by 445, at 73,494, the world’s seventh highest, versus a rise of 172 on Sunday. The seven-day moving average of new fatalities increased to 401, the highest since Dec. 9.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Philippa Fletcher)

White House confirms Biden signing new South Africa travel restrictions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House confirmed President Joe Biden is signing an order on Monday imposing a ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa starting Saturday.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also confirmed Biden will re-impose an entry ban on nearly all non-U.S. travelers who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders that was set to expire Tuesday.

“With the pandemic worsening and more contagious variants spreading, this isn’t the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” Psaki said at a news briefing.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)

Anger and grief as United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll nears 100,000

By Andrew MacAskill and Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) – As the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll approaches 100,000, grief-stricken relatives of the dead expressed anger at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the worst public health crisis in a century.

When the novel coronavirus, which first emerged in China in 2019, slid silently across the United Kingdom in March, Johnson initially said he was confident it could be sent packing in weeks.

But 98,531 deaths later, the United Kingdom has the world’s fifth worst official death toll – more than its civilian toll in World War Two and twice the number killed in the 1940-41 Blitz bombing campaign, although the total population was lower then.

Behind the numbers there is grief and anger.

Jamie Brown’s 65-year-old father died at the end of March after it was suspected he contracted COVID-19 while travelling on a train into London for work. At the time, the government was mulling a lockdown.

Told by medics to stay at home, he awoke days later with a tight chest, disorientated and nauseous, and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. He died from a cardiac arrest five minutes after arriving.

His son said the virus had damaged his lungs to the point where his heart gave up. He was a month away from retirement. “For me, it has been terrifying and harrowing to see everything that you hope for taken away. He will never be at my wedding; he will never meet any grandkids,” Brown told Reuters.

“Then, you watch the death toll rising whilst ministers pat themselves on the back and tell you what a good job they have done. It changes very quickly from a personal to a collective grief.”

Some scientists and opposition politicians say Johnson acted too slowly to stop the spread of the virus and then bungled both the government’s strategy and execution of its response.

Johnson has resisted calls for an inquiry into the handling of the crisis and ministers say that while they have not got everything right, they were making decisions at speed and have among the best global vaccination programs.

The United Kingdom’s death toll – defined as those who die within 28 days of a positive test – rose to 98,531 on Monday. The toll has risen by an average of over 1,000 per day for the past seven days.

‘JUST UNFORGIVABLE’ RESPONSE

In a series of investigations, Reuters has reported how the British government made several errors: it was slow to spot the infections arriving, it was late with a lockdown and it continued to discharge infected hospital patients into care homes.

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said in March that 20,000 deaths would be a good outcome. Soon after, a worst-case scenario prepared by government scientific advisers put the possible death toll at 50,000.

Many of the bereaved are angry and want an immediate public inquiry to learn lessons from the government’s response.

Ranjith Chandrapala died in early May at the same hospital where he took passengers to and from on his bus.

His daughter, Leshie, said the 64-year-old was slim, healthy and had not missed a day of work driving buses in the last 10 years.

She said he was not issued with a face mask – she bought him one herself – and the passengers were not told to wear them.

“The government’s handling of the crisis has been negligent, it is just unforgivable,” she said. “People in power just sent these guys over the line unprotected.”

Chandrapala stopped work on April 24 after developing COVID-19 symptoms. He died in intensive care 10 days later, with his family unable to say goodbye in person.

Early in the pandemic in March, one of England’s most senior doctors told the public that wearing a face mask could increase the risk of infection. The government made face coverings mandatory for passengers in England on June 15.

Nearly 11 months after the United Kingdom recorded its first death, some British hospitals look like a “war zone”, Vallance said, as doctors and nurses battle more infectious variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that scientists fear could be more deadly.

On the COVID-19 frontline, patients and medics are fighting for life.

Joy Halliday, a consultant in intensive care and acute medicine at Milton Keynes University Hospital, said it was “truly heartbreaking” for staff to see so many patients die.

“(Patients) deteriorate very, very quickly, and they go from talking to you and looking actually very well, to 20 minutes later no longer talking to you, to a further 20 minutes later no longer being alive,” she said.

“That is incredibly difficult for everyone.”

(Writing by Paul Sandle; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mike Collett-White)

Global life insurers impose restrictions, worried about long-term pandemic risks

By Suzanne Barlyn, Carolyn Cohn and Noor Zainab Hussain

(Reuters) – Global life insurers are taking steps to curb payouts stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, including long-term health consequences that are not fully understood, industry sources told Reuters.

Life insurers, including Prudential Financial Inc, and Aviva PLC, are now imposing waiting periods before COVID-19 patients, including those who have recovered, can apply for coverage, executives and spokespeople said. Some are also limiting coverage for certain age groups.

These changes come as some reinsurers demand new safeguards from life insurers they backstop, and as the industry struggles to ascertain the extent of problems caused by the novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 has killed over 2.1 million people globally and infected nearly 100 million, according to a Reuters tally.

Some victims suffer long-term consequences including severe respiratory problems, organ damage, circulatory impairment and chronic fatigue. Three weeks after recovery, 10% of COVID-19 patients are still unwell and up to 5% feel sick for months, according to scientists at King’s College London.

The pandemic has also caused a mental-health crisis for those who could not say goodbye to loved ones or have been isolated for months, while exacerbating substance-abuse issues for others.

It is too early to know how many people will file claims for death, long-term illness or disability as a result, but insurers worry the consequences could last for decades.

“We have attempted as a company to strategize about modeling this and have made some headway but are far from the crystal ball that is able to predict this,” said Dr. Paulo Bandeira Pinho, chief medical director of Optimum Re Insurance Co.

Optimum has met with life-insurer customers, including Prudential Financial, to map out long-term risks and possible financial impacts.

Prudential now imposes a minimum 30-day waiting period for recovered COVID-19 patients.

“Ultimately, many of the long-term implications of the pandemic are still unknown,” said Prudential’s Vice President of Operations Keith Bexell. “As the long-tail effects become better understood, our approach to underwriting may adjust as necessary.”

Since April, British life insurer LV= has postponed applications from anyone who was diagnosed with COVID-19, experienced symptoms or lived with someone who got sick, according to an underwriting policy on its website.

Aviva PLC also imposes a “short” delay for those who had COVID-19 or similar symptoms during the past 30 days, a spokesperson said.

VACCINE HOPES

Life insurers are in the business of hedging risks decades in advance. Since the start of the pandemic, the industry has said it would probably not cause major financial damage, partly because they were not seeing a swell of claims.

Global data are not available for 2020. In the United States, 8% of reported group life insurance claims from April to August attributed the cause of death to COVID-19, according to the U.S. Society of Actuaries.

Companies told Reuters the impact so far has been minimal – with LV= seeing COVID-19 affect just 2% of applications and Aviva still covering more than 9 in 10 customers – but they are taking precautionary steps anyway because of long-term risks.

Apart from those who had the disease, Optimum Re’s Pinho worries about a “wave of widows and widowers, children and parents” with shortened lifespans.

Plus, the pandemic reduced preventative health screenings, causing another set of risks, said Chris Behling, SwissRe’s head of life and health underwriting for the Americas.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. Insurers expect vaccines to dramatically improve assumptions.

Some also pointed to better mortality statistics in countries that imposed tight restrictions on travel and socializing, as well as a study from Britain’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries that suggested surviving populations may have a higher life expectancy.

And, if insurers become too stingy with coverage, they may lose valuable customers.

For instance, LV= is excluding mental-health issues from some policies that cover critical illness and income protection for up to 12 months, said Justin Harper, the company’s head of marketing.

“It’s probably the appropriate decision to make, given we’re trying to balance the access but also the risk management,” Harper said.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, Carolyn Cohn in London and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Tom Sims in Frankfurt; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Diane Craft)