Omicron sweeps across the emerging world

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is causing new virus cases to surge in the emerging world. Many EMs are reporting record daily cases or that new infections are rising sharply. South Africa’s experience offers some hope – cases are now falling sharply there and it looks like the economic fallout was limited. Elsewhere, most EM governments are following South Africa’s playbook by imposing limited (if any) containment measures, although China is a key exception. And given weakness in testing capacity and large informal sectors in most EMs, workplace absenteeism is unlikely to be as economically disruptive as in DMs.