The Great Depression of the 1930s catalyzed the creation of modern economic indicators such as gross domestic product and the unemployment rate, so governments could better judge the success of their policies. Now the new coronavirus is having a similar effect with the need to measure social distancing, which could be central to economic recovery in countries that are trying to reopen without generating big new infection clusters. Governments, tech giants and startups are trying to produce easy-to-understand numbers or letter...

Source: Wall Street Journal May 01, 2020 12:00 UTC