THE WORST day of the covid-19 pandemic, at least from an economic perspective, was Good Friday. On April 10th lock-downs in many countries were at their most severe, confining people to their homes and crushing activity. Global gdp that day was 20% lower than it would otherwise have been (see chart 1). Since then governments have lifted lockdowns. Economies have begun to recover. Analysts are pencilling in global gdp growth of 7% or more in the third quarter of this year, compared with the second.That may all sound remarkably v-shaped, but the world is still a long way from normal. Governments continue to enforce social-distancing measures to keep the virus at bay. These reduce output-by allowing fewer diners in restaurants at a time, say, or banning spectators from sports arenas. People remain nervous about being infected. Economic uncertainty among both consumers and firms is near record highs-and this very probably explains companies' reluctance to invest.
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