In a matter of months, the global economy has gone from steady growth to a sharp drop into recession. COVID-19, the illness caused by a novel coronavirus that's rapidly spreading around the world, has put the brakes on the global economy.
Air travel, cruise lines, and hotel bookings have been decimated. Non-essential retailers and businesses have temporarily closed. Restaurants and entertainment venues are closed to patrons, with restaurants in many places only offering delivery or take-out service.
We've already seen the early data to indicate how bad it could get. More than 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past two weeks, by far the largest single-week numbers on record. The U.S. economy lost more than 700,000 jobs in March, the first net-job-loss month in over a decade. It's expected to be far worse in April, even with the federal government set to inject trillions of dollars to prop up the economy and help businesses keep people on their payrolls.