World Coronavirus Dispatch: Pandemic toll on US to be 4x of Great Recession

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The Covid-19 pandemic will exact a $16 trillion toll on the US -- four times the cost of the Great Depression -- when adding the costs of lost lives and health to the direct economic impact, according to former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and fellow Harvard University economist David Cutler.

About half of that amount is related to lost gross domestic product as a result of economic shutdowns and the ongoing spread of the virus, while the other half comes from health losses including premature death and mental and long-term health impairments, Cutler and Summers wrote in an essay published