Notes: Countries grouped into those with the 12 highest, the 12 lowest, and the 13 intermediate cumulative COVID-19 case counts. Bars display average core price acceleration by these groupings. Core inflation acceleration measured as the percentage change in core prices (excluding food and energy) between October 2021 and October 2020 minus the average change in year-over-year prices through 2019. This attempts to normalize core inflation relative to pre-COVID19 norms for these countries. Data on both cumulative COVID-19 cases per million and the acceleration in core inflation is transformed into an index with the average value of each equal to 1.