Opinion

In the midst of the constant up-and-down of coronavirus news, both from science and the markets, it’s easy to lose sight of the scariest scenario of them all: the one where there’s no magic bullet. In this entirely plausible situation, there would be no effective Covid-19 vaccine or transformative therapy; the combination of testing and contact tracing wouldn’t successfully suppress ...

The instruction given by Boris Johnson to the British people on March 23 was dead simple: “You must stay at home.” The pithiness and urgency of that message, the alarming rise in deaths, and the UK prime minister’s subsequent hospitalisation with Covid-19 all reinforced the instruction. People got it. Some say it was too successful. Many Britons don’t seem to ...

As states relax shelter-in-place orders, the economy should bounce back a bit this month and next. Continued fears among consumers and businesses mean the US won’t be back to February’s levels any time soon, but the early April collapse might mark a low as we adjust to our new pandemic normal. The bigger worry might be July, as three key ...

05 May 2020, Northern Ireland, Magherafelt: Workers manufacture Personal protective equipment (PPE), including face shields, for health workers at the Bloc Blinds factory. Photo: Peter Morrison/PA Wire/dpa[/caption Suppose you’re working in an essential industry and your employer hasn’t provided you with adequate personal protective equipment. Maybe you say to yourself, “Okay, there’s a shortage, they’re trying.” Then you discover that ...

The most important trait of any Covid-19 contact-tracing app is that people actually use it. Without widespread adoption, we may all be locked down for a lot longer. Just how widespread? In the UK, at least 80% of smartphone users, covering 56% of the total population, will need to use the app to be effective in tracing contacts with those ...

Whether working from home has been a productivity and wellness-enhancing revelation or a burden to be shouldered with stoic resolve depends on your job, your home setup and your personality. It may even depend on the day. But just as air travel changed beyond recognition after 9/11, traditional offices appear set to become safer, cleaner and less pleasing environments too. ...

If IMF estimates are accurate, this will be the first time since the Great Depression that both advanced and emerging economies could be in recession. The potential of unemployment rising to double digits is also reminiscent of the depression of the 1930s. Some of the great economic ideas of our time were forged in the experience of that previous economic ...

So orderly, so nit-picking, so German. This week, Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe finally delivered its verdict on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) most prominent bond-buying program. Weighing in at 110 pages, this ruling was historic. For the first time, a national court in effect overruled the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Well spaced out because of the new ...

Asia has a new public emergency: breathing life into moribund economies. Months after severely curtailing social and commercial activity in a bid to contain Covid-19, governments are scrambling to reboot activity. They confront a coronavirus that isn’t out of business but economies that very nearly are. The policy priority is shifting from suppressing infections at almost any cost to combating ...

President Donald Trump is a liar — hardly the first but certainly the worst among US presidents. By one count, he has made about 18,000 false or misleading claims, an unmistakable sign of his willingness to deceive. His supporters do not seem especially bothered. They focus on what Trump does, not on whether he tells the truth. Which raises a ...