The Great Interruption

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, highly transmissible and potentially deadly, soon forced a majority of countries into extensive lockdowns. This “Great Interruption” puts societies through a challenging stress test. Governments have to undertake unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy support measures to forestall economic collapse while having to manage community spread of the virus and beef up their nation’s public health capacity. Businesses have to learn how to operate with limited capacity and adapt their operations to an unprecedented situation carrying much uncertainty. Amidst complex balancing acts between public health concerns, economic activity, stabilization policies, and business adaptation, the pandemic has also accentuated several consequential trends, notably healthcare stressors, accelerating the shift to the digital economy, greater inequality, labor market segmentation, and world economy disruptions. America’s mishandling of the pandemic under Trump has further undermined its global standing, while the Federal Reserve’s containment of pressures on the dollar standard has so far been quite effective. Still, “vaccine nationalism” depriving much of the world’s population of access to effective vaccines illustrates the difficulties of organizing sufficient coordination among competing power centers in the interest of the global public good.