The paradoxes of the pandemic are a curse on tourist countries...

Thailand has made very amazing efforts to control the Coronavirus pandemic, like many countries in East and Southeast Asia, but this did not prevent the country from suffering from the economic downturn, which seems to be much worse than that facing its neighbors, or the United States, according to what According to the “Bloomberg” news agency.
This is mainly because Thailand’s economy is highly dependent on tourists from abroad, whom the authorities have prevented from entering the country since the start of the pandemic, and are only now beginning to allow their return under very restrictive conditions.
According to the “German”, in a recent analysis of the impact of the tourism crisis caused by Covid-19 on the current account balances of 52 countries, the International Monetary Fund concluded that Thailand will be the most affected.
The current account measures trade in goods and services in addition to cash transfers, and countries with more negative numbers usually export more tourism services than they import, and the Covid-19 pandemic has cut that surplus in tourism-related trade sharply.
Among the other countries, which have particularly hit Greece, at minus 5.9% of GDP, Portugal minus 4.45%, Morocco minus 3.64%, and Costa Rica minus 3.38%. Thinking about tourism may be in terms of balance. The commercial is a bit confusing at first.
Countries that bring in more tourists than they send abroad are exporting more tourism services than they actually import, and thus achieving a tourism surplus. And countries that send huge numbers of people abroad in search of sunlight and other attractions and receive fewer visitors are net importers of tourism.
By stopping or slowing travel, the pandemic has reduced its tourism trade deficit, as American economist Noah Smith explained in an opinion article published by Bloomberg News, in response to some indications, which he described as “ridiculous”. US President Donald Trump’s trade administration, Peter Navarro, the fact that the trade deficit appears as negative numbers in accounting for GDP, and surpluses as positive does not necessarily mean that reducing the former or increasing the latter will increase growth.
In fact, cutting out foreign tourists’ spending sharply reduces Thailand’s GDP. And in Norway, its residents spending money at home instead of spending it in Marbella or Phuket, might boost GDP to some extent, albeit in the face of many other factors, such as low oil prices, that pushed it down.
In Europe, where the wealthier northern countries usually send a large number of tourists to the poorer southern countries, more than they receive, this means that the pandemic has exacerbated the economic imbalances between the north and the south on the continent. The € 750bn ($ 885bn) stimulus package approved by the European Union in June and offering the biggest benefits to Italy and Spain looks like the right kind of response, if not big maybe enough.
The United States is not poor, but it is also among the countries that get more money from foreign visitors than their residents spend abroad, and this trade surplus is not huge, and most of it does not come from tourists, but from businessmen and foreign students, who study in colleges and universities there. . The United States is not Thailand, but it is achieving clear economic benefits from cross-border travel, which means that the occurrence of a pandemic or anything else that discourages such travel is bad news.
From a ban on social gatherings in London to a curfew in France and the closure of schools in Poland, a new series of strict measures went into effect on Saturday in Europe in hopes of stopping the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.
In London, starting from Saturday, it is forbidden to mix the residents of any place at home with people from outside, and more than 15 thousand new infections were recorded Friday in the United Kingdom, the country with the largest number of deaths in Europe, which reached 43,400.
In France, residents of 12 large cities, including the capital Paris and its suburbs, spent the last free night before a curfew began between 21:00 and 06:00 Saturday, and the measure was imposed, which will remain in place for at least four weeks, with the virus spreading again in the country.
And more than 25,000 injuries were recorded in France during 24 hours on Friday, and around 22:00 Friday, the balconies of cafes and restaurants were open in the Republic Square in the center of the capital, crowded with young people, who laughed loudly.
“We will enjoy as much as possible a restaurant and a little walk with friends on the Champs-Elysees,” 19-year-old student Curtis Magdelon said in response to his four friends. After they took a selfie with their masks on, they continued their way into the night.
And the French Public Health Agency indicated that the epidemic continues to spread from younger to older people, usually this development is very worrying, and new restrictions will take effect in Warsaw and other large cities in Poland, which are red areas.