The shadow of the Omicron variant hangs over the global economy. Even though we remain largely ignorant of its transmissibility, virulence and ability to evade the protection of vaccination or prior infection, there is no better time to take stock of the economic lessons from the past two years in order to help set policy now.
Most important is that when a serious virus is circulating, you cannot separate economics from epidemiology. There is clearly a trade off between restrictions on normal daily life and short-term economic activity, but the underlying cause of both health and economic troubles is the severity of the epidemic