U.S. The most dangerous phase of the Covid-19 crisis is yet to come. Business

aThe most dramatic is marked and some say the U.S. In the Covid-19 crisis is a dangerous phase. There were corpses iling in refrigerated trucks outside New York City’s hospital hospitals, and there was a shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment. The economy was coming down from the climax of the proverb, with unemployment at 14.7%.

Since then, the supply of medical and protective equipment has improved. Doctors are looking for when to put patients on a ventilator and when to lift them. We recognize the importance of protecting vulnerable populations, including the elderly. Infected people are now on average younger, and further reduce casualties. Economic activity has stabilized, albeit at a lower level, with the help of the Coronavirus Assistance, Relief and Economic Security (Care) Act.

Or so we are being told.

In fact, the U.S. The more dangerous phase of the crisis may actually be now, not last spring. Mortality among infected people is declining with improved treatment and a more favorable age profile, while about 1,000 lives a day are still being lost. This coincides with the levels in early April, reflecting the fact that the number of new infections is halved.

Mortality, in any case, is just one aspect of the toll of the virus. Many surviving Covid-19 patients suffer from chronic cardiovascular problems and impaired mental function. If, in a day, 20,000,000 new cases are common, the consequences for disfigurement – and for human health and economic well-being – are truly terrible.

And, like it or not, there is every sign that many Americans, or at least their current leaders, are willing to accept 40,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths a day. They have aged in number. They are swept away by the lockdown. They have politicized the mask.

This is also a more dangerous phase for the economy. In March and April, policymakers pulled out of all stops to stop economic bleeding. But if the economy moves south again now, policy support will be low. Although the Federal Reserve may always devise another asset-buying program, it has already cut interest rates to zero and hoarded a lot of related assets. That’s why Fed officials are pressuring Congress and the White House to take action.

Unfortunately, Congress seems unable to mimic the bipartisanship that enabled it to pass the Care Act in late March. The weekly supplement of Unemployment 600 (462) is allowed to be terminated for the benefit of unemployment. The divisive rhetoric by Donald Trump and other Republican leaders about “Democrat-run” cities suggests that help cards for state and local governments are not.

As a result, if the economy collapses a second time, whether it is due to insufficient monetary stimulus or the flu season and the second Covid-19 wave, it will not receive the additional financial and financial support it has secured in the spring.

The silver bullet on which everyone counts, of course, is a vaccine. This, in fact, is the greatest fear of all.

According to Donald Trump, the vaccine is expected to be introduced in late October, with Phase 3 clinical trials confirming its safety and effectiveness. The spectator evokes memories of Gerald Ford’s urgent swine flu vaccine, the presidential election that also ensued, resulting in cases of Guillain-Barr સિ syndrome and multiple deaths. This episode, combining vaccination with autism with the controversial scientific paper, did much to promote the modern anti-wax movement.

The danger, then, is not only the side effects of a defective vaccine, but also widespread public resistance to a vaccine that undergoes its Phase 3 clinical trial and is supported by the scientific community. This is particularly worrying because skepticism about the quality of vaccinations increases in any way after an epidemic that public health officials, as competent in these matters, are supposed to have failed to avoid.

Studies have shown that living by an epidemic negatively affects confidence that the vaccine is safe and separates those affected from vaccinating their children. This is especially the case for people who are in their “dominant years” (18-25 years of age) at the time of exposure, as attitudes about public policy, including health policy, are formed at this age. This increases skepticism about vaccinations, found at different times and places, which maintains balance throughout a person’s lifetime.

Now the difference is that Trump and his appointments, by making reckless and unreliable claims, risk exacerbating the problem. Thus, if steps are not taken to reassure people of the freedom and integrity of the scientific process, we will be left with the option of “crowd immunity”, which is not an option at all, given the many well-known and questionable comedicities of Covid-19.

All of this warns that the most dangerous phase of the crisis in the US is likely to begin next month. And before that, considering that October is also the beginning of the flu season.

• Barry Eichengreen is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a former senior policy adviser to the IMF.

Sy Project Syndicate