For five months the economy has taken second place to tackling the pandemic. Jobs have been secure thanks to the UK government’s support scheme. Cafés and restaurants have been kept going by the imaginative “eat out to help out” discount. Whether they have the resilience to survive will reveal, for the first time, the damage the coronavirus outbreak has wrought on the foundations of the economy. For governments everywhere it will pose questions about whether or how far they should continue to intervene.

Source: The Times August 31, 2020 23:01 UTC