Coronavirus Recession: Global Trade Collapse and Prospects for a Return to Normalcy

WTO: Trade set to plunge as COVID-19 pandemic upends global economy

https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres20_e/pr855_e.htm

The Greater Trade Collapse of 2020: Learnings from the 2008-09 Great Trade Collapse by Richard Baldwin (Professor of International Economics at The Graduate Institute, Geneva)

https://voxeu.org/article/greater-trade-collapse-2020

“World trade experienced a sudden, severe, and synchronised collapse in 2008 – the steepest drop in recorded history, and the deepest fall since the Great Depression. This column argues that 2020 will show a trade collapse that is far larger since the ‘COVID concussion’ is both a demand shock and a supply shock while the 2008-09 collapse was driven mostly by a demand shock”. 

What Might a Return to 'Normalcy' Involve?

Infrared cameras, personal towels: Chinese factories go to extreme lengths to fend off virus

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/infrared-cameras-personal-towels-china-factories-go-to-extremes-to-fend-off-virus/2020/04/08/4aae5036-722c-11ea-ad9b-254ec99993bc_story.html

Harvard’s Ken Rogoff notes:
Mapping the COVID-19 Recession
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mapping-covid19-global-recession-worst-in-150-years-by-kenneth-rogoff-2020-04
“With extensive testing, we could determine who is sick, who is healthy, and who is already immune and thus able to return to work. Such knowledge would be invaluable. But, again, owing to several layers of mismanagement and misplaced priorities stretching back many years, the US is woefully short of adequate testing capacity”.