Our proprietary DART (Daily Activity and Recovery Tracker) Index estimates economic activity estimates economic activity to have maintained its pace of improvement for the week ending 8th Aug-21
Download ReportQuantEco DART Index Economic activity at par with Feb-21 levels
Encouragingly, economic activity has recovered to Feb-21 levels following the quick rebound over Jun-21 and slower increments Jul-21 onwards. The recovery appears to be broad-based, with most indicators now above or almost near their respective pre-second wave peaks. Only 3 indicators remain significantly below – 1) E-way GST Bills 2) Unemployment Rate and 3) Online Restaurant Searches; the latter two perhaps reflecting the pandemic induced change in income and consumption patterns.
While weekly COVID cases fell marginally by 4.0% after having spiked by ~7% in the previous week, the caseload continues to remain sizeable in Kerala – accounting for nearly 51% of all new cases in the week, and is seeing a sharp increase in Himachal Pradesh. On the other hand, daily pace of vaccinations eased a tad last week to ~5.2 mn compared to 5.3 mn a week ago. With vaccination delivery falling short of the desired pace of ~6 mn doses/day (as per our estimates) over the months of Jun-July and most likely Aug-21, the inoculation pace will have to pick up to ~7 mn/day Sep-21 onwards in order to achieve the target of inoculating ~60% of the population with the first dose by Dec-21 end. For this, a faster ramp-up in supplies will have to be eventually matched by efforts to effectively enhance vaccine acceptancy on the demand side. The recently announced resumption of Mumbai local train service for fully vaccinated population is a fine example of such a desired behavioral ‘nudge’.