When coronavirus spread beyond Wuhan, economies crashed in unison. Around the world, output sank at a scale not witnessed in peacetime. Since then an aggressive fiscal and monetary response — and successful containment of the virus in several east Asian economies, including China — has meant that the prognosis now is no longer as bleak as some had feared earlier in the year. The IMF said in its World Economic Outlook, which was released on Tuesday, that the global economy will shrink by 4.4 per cent this year — an awful figure, but not quite as bad as the 5.2 per cent decline forecast in June. The prospects of recovery, however, are far from even.
當新型冠狀病毒擴散到武漢以外地區時，各個經濟體紛紛崩潰。在全球范圍內，產出下滑的規模是和平時期未曾見過的。隨后，積極的財政和貨幣應對措施——以及包括中國在內的幾個東亞經濟體成功遏制了病毒——意味著現在的預期已不再像一些人今年早些時候擔心的那樣黯淡。國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)在周二發布的《世界經濟展望》(World Economic Outlook)中表示，今年全球經濟將萎縮4.4%，這是一個可怕的數字，但沒有6月份預測的萎縮5.2%那么糟糕。但復蘇的前景極不均衡。