Business Daily

New Zealand is seen by many as a great example of surviving coronavirus, but with such a tourism-heavy economy there are concerns a further shock is to come. One idea mooted to help alleviate this is the so-called “trans-Tasman bubble” in which travel restrictions between Australia and New Zealand would be reciprocally lifted, before all the world’s borders open up, to stimulate commerce between the two nations. This programme features Colin Peacock in Wellington, Maggie Fea from Gibson Valley Wines in Queenstown, Veteran New Zealand politician Peter Dunne and Pacific health policy expert Dr. Colin Tukuitonga.

(Picture: The Australia and New Zealand flags. Picture credit: Getty Images)

Gabrielle Hamilton used to run the celebrated New York restaurant Prune. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. After being forced to shut the place that was her life's work, she wonders if there will still be a place for it in the New York of the future.

(Picture: Gabrielle Hamilton preparing food in the kitchen of her now closed restaurant Prune; Credit: Eric Wolfinger)

The most compelling reports and interviews from the BBC's business programmes over the past week, examining the huge issues facing policymakers and asking what the future holds for our working lives. This week we ask a big moral question - will the deliberate shutting down of economies in an effort to slow Covid-19 kill more than the virus itself? Or as some have predicted will a recession actually save lives? We have a report from Brazil where conflicting messaging has sown confusion and fear. And we'll hear from small business owners, musicians and even horticulturalists. Presented by Lucy Burton.

Living under lockdown is challenging for everyone, but for hundreds of millions of single parents around the world, it can be a terrifying ordeal. It’s not only emotionally draining, but can also be financially crippling, as Tamasin Ford has been finding out. She speaks to Sarah Cawley who delivers lunches to people who can’t leave their homes; she's from One Parent Family Scotland. We also hear from single mums, Fatia Islam in Paris and New Yorker, Thea Jaffe. Victoria Bensen, CEO of Gingerbread, the charity for single parent families in England and Wales talks about the mental and financial strain on single parents and Neferteri Plessy, founder of the charity Single Moms Planet paints a picture of lockdown in Santa Monica, in the US.

Picture of Neferteri Plessy and one of her children, cr Neferteri Plessy.

Governments around the world are planning to roll out contact tracing apps to help contain the spread of coronavirus. But will they work? Ed Butler speaks to BBC technology reporter Chris Fox about the technology that underpins them, and to researcher Natalie Pang from the National University of Singapore about the experience of Singapore's TraceTogether app, launched last month. But conventional human contact tracing has been around for decades. UK contact tracer Karen Buckley describes the challenges of the job, and John Welch from the non-profit Partners in Health describes his experience of contact tracing amid the Ebola outbreak in Africa and argues that apps are no substitute for an army of dedicated human contact tracers.

(Photo: A man holds a smartphone showing a contact tracing app launched in Norway this month. Credit: Getty Images)

In today's Business Daily we're asking some awkward, often neglected questions - will the economic recession itself prove more fatal than coronavirus? How do and how should governments put a value on human life? To help answer these questions we speak to Bryce Wilkinson, a senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative; US science journalist and biostatistician, Lynne Peeples and John Broome, a Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. (Picture of a wallet via Getty Images).

The World Bank has warned global remittances, which is the money migrant workers send home, will fall by around 20% in 2020 because of coronavirus. The bank predicts this will affect the income of at least tens of millions of families. One such family is that of Smitha in Kerala, whose husband is stuck in Dubai unable to work due to lockdown. But it’s not just about subsistence. Michael Clemens at the Centre for Global Development says remittance flows are a crucial resource for helping families and communities pull themselves out of poverty, and the effects of this sharp fall in remittances will be felt for many years to come. Meanwhile, Yvonne Mhango, Sub-Saharan Africa at Renaissance Capital, explains how the impact felt in Africa will differ across regions. And Michael Kent, CEO of digital payments service Azimo, explains how services like his could fill the gap left by the shuttering of brick and mortar transfer shops.

Coronavirus has derailed the global economy, closing entire business chains across the world. Big companies may have the collateral to withstand the storm, but what about smaller ones? We speak to three business owners to find out. Ramjit Ray in Calcutta in India, Victoria Brockelsby in High Wycombe in the UK and Mustafa Jaffer in Allentown in the US. (Picture description: Coronavirus calculator via Getty Images).

Countries in Europe are planning to scale back lockdown measures and reopen their economies. But what will the new normal look like? Ed Butler speaks to the BBC's China media analyst Kerry Allen about the experience of Hubei province in China, which ended its lockdown earlier this month, and to Markus Dulle, owner of several DIY stores in Austria, where some shops have begun trading again after a month of shutdown. Experts agree that a programme of testing for the coronavirus is needed before lockdown measures are scaled back - Oxford University economist Daniel Susskind explains why selecting specific groups of people would be more effective than testing everybody at random. And Michel Goldman, professor of immunology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, explains why a return to 'normal' could take generations.

(Photo: A staff member hands out masks at a reopened DIY store in Austria, Credit: Getty Images)

A crunch meeting of EU leaders today aims to finally show Italy and others solidarity in the struggle against coronavirus.

A plan is gaining momentum for the European Commission to raise a trillion-plus-euro fund to invest in the recovery of the European economy, something that could mark a major step towards federalism if it succeeds, but many fear could trigger the unravelling of the European project if it fails to win approval.

Manuela Saragosa, herself half-Dutch and half-Italian, asks whether the plan can bridge the bitter divide between her two parent nations over how to handle the crisis. Dutch economist Esther Rijswijk says the Netherlands won't want to hand over money without conditions attached, but Italian MP Lorenzo Fioramonti says the very word "conditions" has become a taboo in an increasingly angry and euro-sceptical Italy.

Meanwhile, one of the plan's co-authors, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, explains why he thinks he's come up with a solution that avoids the usual messy EU fudge.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: EU flag containing viruses instead of stars; Credit: muchomor/Getty Images)