If you want to sell papers these days, a nice juicy piece with some new figures about the human and financial costs of COVID-19 restrictions will send the digital issues flying off the shelves.

There is a huge appetite among audiences to revel in our collective penury – a deficit forecast to amount to somewhere between $198 billion and $230 billion this year, depending on your choice of economist. If you really want to thrill to the enormity, don't forget the historic levels of debt – $800 billion or on track to top $1 trillion!