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Every country so far has been working on enforcing social distancing measures to tackle the COVID-19 epidemic, with El Salvador going as far as to isolate the entire country before they've received their first patient. This caused nearly ever major event to be cancelled and caused tremendous losses for the economy. But is there already a long term plan on bringing the economy back to life? Surely countries cannot just live in quarantine forever?

Only notable exception that I'm aware of is Boris Johnson announcing that the UK will be following a different approach:

Defending Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision not to follow other European countries by closing schools and banning mass gatherings, Patrick Vallance said it was the government’s aim to “reduce the peak of the epidemic, pull it down and broaden it” while protecting the elderly and vulnerable

So the UK's long term plan seems to be "business as usual", but what about others?

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  • I'm not sure just how cancelling events means major losses for an economy. (Unless they're intended to attract foreign tourists, of course.) If I can't spend say $100 on a concert or sporting event, I still have that $100 that I can spend on on-line purchases - say of face masks, disinfecting wipes, or a 10-year supply of toilet paper. What the concert promoters lose the on-line merchants win, no? – jamesqf Mar 14 at 4:56
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    @jamesqf there's going to be a knock-on effect to all the people who work in restaurants, cinemas, concert halls. their purchasing $ are going up in smoke. I am actually extremely curious how China and S Korea are planning to proceed, now that their daily infection rates are more under control. clearly the virus is just as contagious there as before, so they need to be very cautious. plus, aside from the concert, there's a lot of plain old temporary closures of other businesses in Italy. – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Mar 14 at 5:10
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    @jamesqf losing tourism alone is a huge loss, especially for a country like Italy. Then you've got issues with a large number of people losing their jobs in the hospitality sector, which will send shockwaves across the economy. And we can soon expect to see the effects of business travel ceasing, as a lot of deals are made in person and cannot be fully replaced by a Skype call. And what do they propose doing to the airline industry - leaving all the planes to rot? – JonathanReez Mar 14 at 5:12
  • (1) This is too broad with any random country's measures being a valid answer. And (2) you probably missed the question 2 slots below yours politics.stackexchange.com/questions/50968/… – Fizz Mar 14 at 14:10
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    By the way this one is gonna be interesting. – Fizz Mar 14 at 14:19
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  • Germany has pretty supportive laws in place for people who are personally quarantined, basically paid sick days off. This will have the effect of supporting domestic demand during the crisis.
  • That does not cover the general economic downturn for people who are not directly sick or quarantined, so the government decided on tax deferments and a loan program for businesses.
  • There is also the possibility of payments from the unemployment insurance system for workers who had their working hours reduced, this allows companies to avoid layoffs.
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