I think you misunderstand me. I’m not claiming that a pandemic is unprecedented. I’m claiming that a pandemic in the post modern economy is unprecedented, as i

I think you misunderstand me. I’m not claiming that a pandemic is unprecedented. I’m claiming that a pandemic in the post modern economy is unprecedented, as is a prophylactic shutdown of 1/3 of the economy. That being said, my point is that economic predictions are especially difficult given that we’ve never seen this before. For comparison, consider the many economists who at the time expected the depression to reappear after the demobilization following WWII. Despite their good intentions and good data, they too were dealing with a unique situation, and they turned out to be very wrong.