Economist here. This is extremely wishful/partisan thinking. The economy is in ruins totally because of the mitigation. Synchronized mitigation in locations with no community transmission. https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1316746485917257729

A regular pandemic like in 1957 or 1968 rolls through an area in waves, each wave's most severe period lasting a month tops. Local peaks are never synchronized. When in people one area see news of local hospitals under strain and cut back on activity, another city is recovering.

Most people probably did not even notice the 1957, 68 pandemics, but even during the 1918 pandemic, businesses were not forced to close state-wide for a year. And certainly not in places w/o much virus activity.

What has been done in this pandemic - extremely broad business closures in areas of no transmission and no curve to flatten. It was mostly a huge waste that just delayed local waves and saved near-zero lives. It also maximized economic damage.

What WAS true in March and IS different from prior pandemics - a global media panic probably scared plenty of people in places w/o a local transmission. So, restaurants emptied before politicians did their knee-jerk lockdowns.

BUT, w/o lockdowns people would've returned much sooner in places with no significant local transmission. Sure, not everyone would've gone back to restaurants, but plenty of people would have. Restrictions that were kept on for too long prevented that from happening.

Nobody's saying that all economic damage is from lockdowns. But a big chunk of it is. And another big chunk is from the media spreading fear. It will take time assess the media's role in this whole mess, because this is the first pandemic of the hyperconnected world.

Historical analysis of the 1918 pandemic by Robert Barro showed that economic damage in % of country's GDP lost was roughly double the country's mortality rate. That's 1-1.5% GDP lost for Covid. We're heading for 4% (absent more lockdowns this Fall/Winter).

Sure, our economy is more dependent on services than in 1918 (50% vs 30ish), but the duration of mitigation constraining services is the first order effect here. We did extreme damage when temporary 'flatten the curve' measures morphed into 'zero covid' strategy over summer.

Where does that leave us? If most mitigation measures end, a bunch of economic activity will come back. For example, plenty of young people would party/use services because they know by now they are not at risk. Plenty of healthy middle-aged people have pandemic fatigue as well.

But the level of fear is pretty high. The media+social media 'cried wolf,' and it worked the first time. Next pandemic may turn out differently. But it was not the virus, it was the fear , which is still extremely disconnected from any rational assessment of risks.

Now, I'm not a big believer in rationality. People are far from rational, and can be extremely wrong. They can be persistently wrong. But being persistently extremely wrong is unlikely. So, I expect the fear to converge with reality sooner rather than later.

What I am less positive about is the supply and the ability to pay. Half of jobs lost in April-May are not coming back easily. Without further small business and personal income support we may see a double-dip recession. But it would not be because of the virus.

Even a bad Fall/Winter wave of covid deaths probably won't do much to the economy at this point (since activity is still quite depressed) IF there are no additional broad restrictions. Whether there are more widespread restrictions is likely a function of election results.