After the storm: Taking stock of the economic scars of the pandemic

Now that the steep decline in economic activity is behind us, it is time to assess what parts of the economy have the worst scars

Even as the number of cases and daily deaths are at unacceptably high levels, there are several reasons why the opening up of the economy is unlikely to be reversed. The case-fatality rate has been falling since June, and is now incrementally at 1.3 per cent. Epidemiologists offer several hypotheses for this: Improving medical protocols for treating patients (for both doctors and other medical staff); availability of proven medication for severe cases; a possible weakening of the virus’ potency (as seen earlier in diseases like chikungunya and swine-flu); and possibly the viral load causing the infection in less-densely populated areas