“Covid-19 is the most adverse peacetime shock to the global economy in a century.” Moreover, this recession “is the first since 1870 to be triggered solely by a pandemic”. Both observations come from the World Bank’s excellent new Global Economic Prospects. They illuminate the scale of the damage. Never can there have been a greater need for an ambitious and co-operative response. Alas, not for a long time have these qualities been so absent.

One of the report’s salient conclusions is the scale of uncertainty about what lies ahead. We know that we are in the midst of an extraordinary global economic contraction. We do not know how deep and persistent it will be, nor how long its adverse effects will last.

We are, after all, at an early stage in managing the disease. That is particularly true for emerging and developing countries, where Covid-19 is still taking off. Measures to contain it are especially hard to implement there, given the dependence of so many on work in the informal sector and the limited health and fiscal capacities of governments. Their sole advantage is the relative youth of their populations.