THERE is not enough medical experience and scientific data to allow any institution, expert and government, to say when the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Therefore, what people all over the world need to be prepared for is not a post-pandemic economy but a pandemic-prone economy.

A pandemic-prone economy is one in which COVID-19 or other pandemics have not been completely eliminated but in which there may always be some cases of infection.

This situation will exist because societies cannot create the conditions in which they completely eliminate the possibility of a virus, given the enormous cost of the necessary health care, the cost of testing, and the societal discipline required to do adequate social distancing.

Against this reality there is little point in a total lockdown of the economy, as we have previously argued in this space. There is the probability that there will always be some fatalities from COVID-19 in the same way that there will be fatalities from the other infectious diseases with which we now coexist.

Jamaica has begun the tentative steps to restore the economy to full or near full recovery. The Andrew Holness Government has established a commission to decide on the date and modalities for that move.

Their task is to formulate a plan of action with timelines for the selective and gradual reopening. This will have to be matched by rapid detection for identification, isolation, and treatment of hot spots for the novel coronavirus.

Refloating the economy, we recommend, must start soon before there is more major fallout. Massive layoffs, impacting especially those least able to cope with being unemployed, will increase poverty – and hungry people are apt to turn to crime.

In this regard, more needs to be done to get sales for the surpluses which now exist in the agriculture sector. The key to clearing the glut is the use of social media, and import restrictions which are allowed as temporary emergency measures under the World Trade Organization (WTO).

There is urgency because businesses are reaching the point where losses are so large that they will go out of business without the means, even with borrowing, to ever reopen. This would be a permanent loss of productive capacity and employment.

Less economic activity will deprive the Government at a time when it needs to increase expenditure, forcing it to borrow on local financial markets. Although there is a lot of liquidity, this might deprive the private sector of financing or increase the cost of borrowing.

The need to move without undue delay is important for husbanding the international reserves at a time when foreign exchange inflows from tourism and remittances are down. The international reserves are key to maintaining the stability of the exchange rate, which is a sign of confidence in the economy and in the economic management of the Government.

In the unavoidable trade-off between controlling COVID-19 and restoring the economy to avoid an economic collapse. It is essential that we do not make total control of the pandemic the enemy of economic recovery.