The potential impact on the global economy in the context of what we know and don't know about the coronavirus

Experiments indicate that about a third of the economic losses from the disease will be direct costs: loss of life, closure of workplaces, and quarantine measures. The remaining two thirds are the indirect effects of low consumer confidence, the austerity pathway in business, and difficult conditions in financial markets.

The good news is that financial systems are more solid than they were before the global financial crisis, Iraq and Kurdistan have taken the measures that would prevent the spread of this epidemic and reduce the losses to the maximum extent possible, all of which are pleasant and good things. However, the biggest challenge now is dealing with uncertainty.

Under any scenario, global growth in 2020 will drop from last year's level. But what is difficult to predict is how far it will decrease, and how long it will continue to decline, because this will depend on the epidemic itself, as well as on the timing and effectiveness of our actions.

This is especially difficult in countries with weak health systems and limited response capacity - which requires a global coordination mechanism to accelerate recovery in supply and demand.