At least in tech, there have been waves upon waves of layoffs the last two weeks. Those jobs won’t instantly come back, even when the economy recovers. Beyond

At least in tech, there have been waves upon waves of layoffs the last two weeks. Those jobs won’t instantly come back, even when the economy recovers. Beyond tech, many small business will never reopen. Their suppliers will now be over staffed, and need to lay-off. The suppliers of their suppliers will see a reduction in their order volume, and will do layoffs. Etc, etc. I’m not an economist, but it doesn’t take an economist to see that even if we had a vaccine every human being could get today, that there would still be a permanent jump in unemployment that will take time to recover from. Given there is no vaccine in the near future, the hope turns to NPIs or therapeutics. NPIs will continue to suppress the economy because many service workers won’t be able to resume their jobs, even as some people go back to work. Cruises won’t be back. Amusement parks won’t reopen. Stadiums will still be shut. Flights will still run mostly empty. Ubers will be avoided. So, the hope turns to therapeutics. Hopefully some drug cocktail can reduce the severity of symptoms so fewer people enter catastrophic distress. And/or, we discover some other way to treat those in the ICU to further lower the death rate. If we can lower the death rate to actually be the same as a bad flu season, maybe enough people will have confidence to resume their normal lives. For now, I don’t personally foresee a V shaped recovery. I’m not sure I buy a U shaped recovery either. But, I’m not an economist, so I shouldn’t be taken as anything other than a random internet person sharing their opinion.