A day will come when a vaccine is available, the World Health Organisation confirms there are no new coronavirus cases, and our lives return to normal. When this will be is uncertain, but as the effects of the pandemic start to ease, governments and businesses everywhere have begun to consider how to rescue once buoyant economies
Some nations like Germany are taking a cautious step-by-step national approach that seeks to balance the resumption of commerce and daily life against the continuing requirement to preserve public health. Others like the US Administration want for political reasons to rapidly upend the lockdown. Elsewhere, the positions taken by global outliers raise wider questions. These include Brazil, which has a President who is a pandemic denier, and Russia where infections and deaths continue to surge because of an initial slowness to react at high levels.
For the Caribbean, where national restrictions are being gradually eased, the challenge of economic recovery will be considerable.