
IMF sees pandemic causing global recession in 2020; recovery in 2021 - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-imf/imf-sees-pandemic-causing-global-recession-in-2020-recovery-in-2021-idUSKBN21A33O
======
neals
Me and my SO have now almost fully recovered from COVID-19 after a rough few
days.

Now that I have these anti-bodies in my blood, should we not be allowed
outside, spend our money and help the economy?

There are must be at least 100 000 people in my (small) country that are now
immune. A number that is growing faster than published number of infected.

Let's make a plan for our return to society. Let us wear a mark or put a stamp
in our passports or let's think of something clever.

I feel like I could be doing a lot more than just working from home with my
newfound super-power.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Donate blood! Plasma (?) can be separated and the antibodies used to treat
other sufferer!

~~~
threeseed
If you have had coronavirus you can only donate at minimum 3 months after
symptoms have ended.

And no. Antibodies can not be used to treat other sufferers.

~~~
l_davis
Using antibodies to treat patients appears to be on the pipeline -
[https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-
dis...](https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-disease-
experts-recommend-using-antibodies-from-covid-19-survivors-as-stopgap-
measure.html)

------
Communitivity
That seems unrealistic to me. We are on the brink of a depression and I think
if we go over that brink it will take a decade to fully recover. I hope I am
wrong.

From Wikipedia: "In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great
Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the
U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an
unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in
1933."

~~~
mcintyre1994
I'm not sure exactly how good a measure GNP is of this, but for what it's
worth the US GNP both absolute and per capita was slightly above its 2008
level by 2010, and has kept climbing ever since.
[https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-
states/gnp-...](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gnp-
gross-national-product)

By contrast the UK still hasn't come close to recovering to the same level:
[https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-
kingdom/gnp...](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gnp-
gross-national-product)

So maybe the US at least is in a better position than it was in the 1930's to
recover on that measure?

~~~
lordnacho
How do the numbers work? You can see growth is positive in some years but the
GNP is going down?

------
donw
I rather doubt anybody knows what’s going on.

Suddenly shutting down north of thirty percent of all global economic activity
is absolutely uncharted territory.

~~~
bad_user
On the other hand it's a straightforward economic slowdown, there's no hidden
or surprising cause and effect, we understand what's going on. Before the
pandemic there was no shortage of capital. We should be able to recover from
it well.

Unless we fail to contain this virus, or find a treatment for those severe
cases and the situation lasts for months on end. In which case we're screwed
:)

~~~
smdz
Probably not that simple.

If we had a planned and publicly notified and unified worldwide lockdown and
curfew for 20 or 30 days, including the stock markets - the recovery would
have been sooner. People and businesses can take that hit.

But with segregated efforts, some doing serious lockdowns and some not so
serious lockdowns, where countries are interdependent, the timeline is unknown
and hence the impact is unknown. Businesses might be able to stay healthy may
be 15 days more. But beyond that is a strong possibility, and hence the
economic impact is going to be much larger and uncertain.

------
smdz
"Learning from the H1N1 pandemic"

"A major contributing factor to some of the criticisms of the management of
the H1N1 pandemic was that its mortality impact was considerably less than had
been predicted. "

"The documented worldwide mortality from H1N1 is 50–100 times lower than
conservative pre-pandemic predictions and substantially lower than seasonal
influenza deaths."

Source:
[https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/22/1/7/489927](https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/22/1/7/489927)

How do they make sure that the mortality rate is between 2-3%? Same goes for
the hospitalization rate, based on which the entire flattening-the-curve
decisions are made.

From what we know many will recover with mild symptoms. Those "many" may not
even be tested and accounted for total Covid-19 cases

Edit: I'm not trying to dilute the seriousness of this situation. Just
questioning the statistical models based on the source above

------
RalfWausE
My (not entirely serious) plan for getting rich: Wait until the economy hits
rock bottom and buy cheap stock on a wide range of economies, than forget them
until my SO and i retire (round about 40 years from now), then rediscover our
assets, sell and get rich

~~~
twomoretime
You're not going to time the bottom, but you can put a floor on your profits
if you assume things will get back to where they were two months ago, and
start buying little by little now. Because currently you can find many
companies that are at 50% discount already.

~~~
rebuilder
Just don't pick companies that end up going bust.

~~~
twomoretime
Good point. This is still a highish risk investment, but again if you have
faith in the government long term and distribute your investments, you should
come out ahead.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
It's possible, the market jumps at every little bit of good news. Once we are
on the other side of the curve, we'll see what happens.

------
jamiegreen
Who could foresee that shutting down most major world economies an for
undetermined length of time could cause a recession?

~~~
Daishiman
The pandemic experts who warned the world of the consequences of inaction did.

------
foxyv
Right now I'm gathering up as much cash as possible to buy throughout this
downturn. I'm loving the cheap index funds. Then again I am saving it mostly
for 10+ years from now.

~~~
smartbit
Currencies are not as save bet IMHO. For years and years Central Banks have
_printed_ money ( _Quantative Easing_ ). When people start to distrust a
currency like Dollar or Euro we will see a economic downturn as not seen since
1929.

~~~
foxyv
Yeah, I'm mostly saving money instead of spending it and buying index funds.

