The Economist UK - 21.03.2020

The EconomistMarch 21st 2020 3

1 Contents continues overleaf

Contents

The world this week

5 A summary of political

and business news

Leaders

7 The pandemic

Closed

8 The world economy

Fighting the slump

10 Free speech

Stop deporting reporters

10 Guyana

Petro power struggle

12 Professional sports

The cost of cancelling

Letters

14 On coronavirus and

business, central banks,

Hong Kong, data

Briefing

15 The pandemic

The lockdown and the

long haul

19 The economic

emergency

Experimental treatment

Britain

23 The big state is back

24 Curtains in theatreland

25 Bailing out the railways

25 Supermarket supply-

chains

26 The isolated old

26 Life under lockdown

28 The virus and Brexit

28 The internet’s resilience

29 BagehotSpirit of the Blitz

Europe

31 Italy’s catastrophe

32 Spain unites

33 Frontier theatre

33 France’s elections

34 Deplinthing Alexander

34 Resisting Putin

35 CharlemagneThe need

for the nation-state

United States

37 America’s covid-

38 The census

39 Joe Biden’s electoral

distancing

40 Gay rural Americans

41 Fake scrolls

42 LexingtonDeclinism

rampant

The Americas

43 Coca and refugees in

Colombia

44 BelloVenezuela’s

political quarantine

46 Canada and lichen

Middle East & Africa

47 Ethiopia’s hidden war

48 HIV and the disabled

49 Crocodile-hunting in

Congo

49 Prayer in a pandemic

50 Bibi and the virus

Free exchange

Economies can quickly

recover from huge

slumps in GDP—but not

always, page 70

On the cover

The struggle to save lives and
the economy is likely to
present agonising choices:
leader, page 7. Europe’s
lockdown, page 15.
Governments and central
banks are spending, page 19.
Business grinds to a halt,
page 61. The dash to cash,
page 66. The Fed acts, page 68.
The virus and schools, page 59.
Italy in peril, page 31. American
life transformed, page 37.
Covid-19 is exposing America’s
resilience as well as its
vulnerability: Lexington,
page 42. The grim prospects
for India,page 51. The virus
and Britain’s big state, page 23.
History is a valuable resource
in dark times: Bagehot, page 29.
How virus-testing works,
page 72

• US-China relations in crisis
  Amid the pandemic, Sino-
  American relations are rapidly
  worsening: leader, page 10and
  analysis, page 55


• Ethiopia’s hidden war
  A military crackdown threatens
  the country ’s fragile transition to
  democracy, page 47

We are working hard to

ensure that there is no dis-

ruption to print copies of

The Economistas a result of

the coronavirus. But if you

have digital access as part of

your subscription, then acti-

vating it will ensure that you

can always read the digital

version of the newspaper as

well as all of our daily jour-

nalism. To do so, visit

economist.com/activate