COVID-19: Impacts to business As well as serious implications for people’s health, COVID-19

As many countries struggle to control the pandemic, McKinsey remains tightly focused on the global healthcare response to it.

McKinsey continues to track economic and epidemiological developments around the world. For an overview, read our latest briefing materials (July 6, 2020). In 54 pages, we document the current situation, the economic outlook, the forces shaping the next normal, and the new organizational structures that can help companies keep pace sustainably.

This week, we reviewed the potential for South Africa’s small businesses to survive during the pandemic and to thrive after it, considered the case for more M&A as corporate India seeks to recover from the crisis, looked at the ways shared mobility might come back after it ends, offered recommendations on pricing for property and casualty insurers, and pondered the future of packaging design (including an interview with the CEO of Sealed Air).

But we focused mainly on healthcare systems. Testing is critical for containing COVID-19, yet many countries still struggle with shortages of the necessary materials. Our new article looks at five parts of the testing process and examines the bottlenecks in each. Some US laboratories, for example, have reported unused capacity to conduct tests, even as patients and healthcare workers report difficulty securing them. Similar mismatches have arisen in the United Kingdom, and they are also showing up in supplies of reagents, test kits, and other consumables. To fix the problems, countries will have to make capacity more visible by establishing information nerve centers.

Another focus of research is the airborne transmission of the coronavirus. World Health Organization guidelines now state that it may be possible indoors, especially for people who spend significant amounts of time in crowded, poorly ventilated rooms. Our new article not only offers a primer on air purification, air filtration, and airflow management but also examines the steps that building managers, safety experts, and others might take to optimize airflows and ventilation indoors and to limit the spread of the virus.

This week also saw the news about a successful vaccine trial. Thanks to that, the world may be able to look ahead to the pandemic’s end. But as a McKinsey team writes, this is not the last pandemic. To correct deficiencies in the surveillance of and response to infectious diseases, governments will have to make substantial investments—but they will be well worth the money (exhibit). Our research outlines the shifts needed in healthcare systems.