Things are pretty stable at home in Pakistan but it seems that the coronavirus is in no mood to stop spreading and killing across much of the rest of the world. And the lockdowns and job losses that are part and parcel of the global recession triggered by this medical emergency have also taken a very heavy toll on countries, families and individuals. So much so that the World Bank now fears that it might push as much as 100 million people into extreme poverty, perhaps even more, if something is not done to contain it sometime soon. Yet since a possible vaccine to the virus is still in the pipeline with no confirmed date for its success, it seems there’s still a lot of suffering that is going to come before things even start to get better internationally. Poor countries are, of course, at far higher risk than those that are better off, even though nobody is in really good health at the moment as far as international economies go. The need of the hour, therefore, is for the richer bunch to write off or at least trim down all the debt owed to them by the poorer bunch. The G20 countries have taken a very good step in this regard, but all in all it will not be enough, as the World Bank pointed out and much more still needs to be done Poor countries, already financially constrained and doing their best to stay afloat amid the pandemic, are in no position to raise funds to pay off old debt. And default is completely out of the question. It would mean certain misery and death from starvation for the poorest in the poor countries. Pakistan really dodged a bullet with the pandemic. Its smart lockdown response, which was pretty heavily criticised at the time it was being implemented, turned out to be the saviour after all. That is so because it allowed the economy to open and at least a few people to return to their jobs as authorities tried their best to isolate the virus. With time it turned out to be the right step and the economy slowly recovered; to the point that even exports have recorded a healthy jump in July. Pakistan might be safe for the moment, but it’s not truly out of the water yet, but a lot of the world is bracing for economic meltdown and an explosion in poverty. *