Not surprisingly, the International Monetary Fund has forecast that the “great lockdown” required to fight the global pandemic of COVID-19 will cause the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s and a much deeper Australian contraction than the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s.

But the cause of this crisis like no other provides some hope in the IMF’s baseline prediction of a V-shaped Australian recovery if the gains in suppressing the contagion allow health restrictions to be eased in the second half of 2020.