Regarding the bonds, that doesn’t seem true. The conditions for payout are:
“ On the face of it, the class B bond should have incurred losses during the 2018 ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the recent coronavirus from Wuhan, China, as both have resulted in deaths north of 250 people, the primary condition for a payout.”
“ But an important secondary condition states that there must be at least 20 deaths in a second country for the bond to release any funds, a requirement that has not been met by the coronavirus or the ebola outbreak.”
Curiously Iran's smoking rate is low - 1/3 of America's. I had thought that lung-compromised smokers were responsible for high mortality in some countries. Hm.
That could still be true. I imagine there are a huge number of variables that influence mortality rates, to the point where finding correlations is difficult.
If I understand correctly, even the effect of weather/heat on various strains of viruses is extremely difficult to predict because of how many other factors play a role (air-conditioning, for example).
“ On the face of it, the class B bond should have incurred losses during the 2018 ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the recent coronavirus from Wuhan, China, as both have resulted in deaths north of 250 people, the primary condition for a payout.”
“ But an important secondary condition states that there must be at least 20 deaths in a second country for the bond to release any funds, a requirement that has not been met by the coronavirus or the ebola outbreak.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-world-bank-has-an-insu...