For annual figures, a first approximation is that a month is worth 1/12th of the annual output so I would expect a 8.3% drop for every month that the economy is completely stopped.
34% contraction for a quarter means that the economy essentially stopped for a whole month, and would lead to a 8% contraction for 2020, everything else being equal. But we're not through yet...
It’s not that easy as the US economy was never “completely stopped”. Public services did not stop, grocery stores did not stop, etc. Even today the states have various levels of openness and movement.
Yes, 8.3% is obviously the upper bound and in practice it will always be less per month since the economy will never completely stop. The figure is to provide a ballpark estimate of what to expect and also to estimate how much the economy was impacted.
Yeah. Everyone knew this was going to be bad, which is why the experts were saying we need to get it under control quickly and figure out how to safely operate while the pandemic is in effect. But 2016 happened, so instead we get months and months of lockdown and the accompanying economic devastation.
And that's before the epic blame game even started. Boy, that would be interesting to watch.
Masks worn correctly limits spread, but it's just a piece in the puzzle of tools available, and almost certainly not the most significant one, that is not meeting people.
Look at Finland, Norway and Denmark, they all successfully controlled it so far without mask usage. Catching up with research they now encourage it in indoor situations where you can't distance, even though the recommendation still is to not even be there if possible. Leaving it as a tool available if current measures aren't enough.
It is mostly under control in europe, people understand and accept that if and when there are flareups local lockdowns will happen.
A "new normal" if you will.
Perhaps somewhere we could take lessons from with regards to public health policy.
Unfortunately, no country had ever dealt with anything like this. /s
And yet there seems to be a surprisingly little amount of "What choices did Asian countries make in 2002, 2003, and 2004? Which were effective / ineffective? What were their economic impacts?"
Instead, at the highest Western government levels, there seems to be an assertion that no one has ever faced anything like this before, and the choices that need to be made are without precedent.