It’s unclear if US, Europe can reopen when new coronavirus cases remain high - Fitch Solutions

CNBC reports that according to analyst from Fitch Solutions, with the U.S. and several European countries still reporting thousands of new coronavirus cases every day, questions remain on whether they can safely ease restrictions aimed at curbing the pandemic anytime soon.

Those restrictions, which include travel bans and temporarily shutting down businesses and schools, have brought much of global economic activity to a standstill. With some signs that the spread of the virus is slowing down, many governments are eager to restart their economies.

But Cedric Chehab, head of country risk and global strategy at Fitch Solutions, said China's experience of rolling back those restrictions showed that there could be a new wave of infections.

"China is reopening its economy in stages, but we've already seen some incipient risk of a second wave coming out of the city of Harbin," he told CNBC, pointing out that there was "upward pressure" on daily new cases reported when China started relaxing its measures.

"If you think about other countries such as the U.S., Spain and Italy, although the numbers of new cases have peaked, they're still extremely high relative to what we saw in South Korea and China," he said. "So the question is can they actually start to ease restrictions and open up the economies when they have such high number of new cases still."

The recovery in the global economy depends on how quickly countries can get activity going again, said Chehab, who predicted that economies will feel most of the pain in the second quarter.