OECD – After the lockdown, a tightrope walk toward recovery. The spread of Covid-19 has shaken people’s lives around the globe in an extraordinary way, threatening health, disrupting economic activity, and hurting wellbeing and jobs.Since our last Economic Outlook update, in early March, multiple virus outbreaks evolved into a global pandemic, moving too fast across the globe for most healthcare systems to cope witheffectively.To reduce the spread of the virus and buy time to strengthen healthcare systems, governments had to shut down large segments of economic activity.At the time of writing, the pandemic has started to recede in many countries, and activity has begun to pick up. The health, social and economic impact of the outbreak could have been considerably worsewithout the dedication of healthcare and other essential workers who continued to servethe public, putting their own health at riskin doing so.Governments and central banks have put in place wide-ranging policies to protect people and businesses from the consequences of the sudden stop in activity.Economic activity has collapsedacross the OECD during shutdowns, by as much as 20 to 30%in some countries, an extraordinary shock. Borders have been closed and trade has plummeted. Simultaneously, governments implementedquick, large and innovative support measuresto cushion the blow, subsidising workersand firms. Social and financial safety nets were strengthened at record speed. As financial stress surged, central banks took forceful and timely action, deploying an array of conventional and unconventional policies above and beyond those used in the Global Financial Crisis, preventing the health and economic crisis from spilling over into a financial one. As long as no vaccine or treatment is widely available, policymakers around the world will continue to walk on a tightrope. Physical distancing and testing, tracking, tracing and isolating (TTTI) will be the main instruments to fight the spread of the virus. TTTI is indispensable for economic and social activities to resume. But thosesectors affected by border closures and those requiring close personal contact, such as tourism, travel, entertainment, restaurants and accommodation will not resume as before. TTTI may not even be enough to prevent a second outbreak of the virus.
