Rising COVID cases will stall UK recovery, budget watchdog warns

A sharp rise in coronavirus cases is likely to cause Britain’s economic recovery to stall until the resurgence comes under control, the country’s budget watchdog said. Britain has recorded more than 14,000 new cases on each of the past two days, the most since mass testing began in April, and has increased curbs on socialising, with Scotland announcing the closure of pubs in its two biggest cities. “There will be some kind of hiatus in the recovery,” said Charlie Bean, a former Bank of England deputy governor who now serves on the board of the Office for Budget Responsibility. “How long and how potentially deep that is, I think it’s very difficult to know at this stage until we see how effective any measures are in bringing this resurgence of cases back under control,” he told parliament’s Treasury Committee.