While the scale, scope, and timing of the monetary and fiscal policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic are unprecedented and will certainly cushion the blow the shock inflicts on the economy, the shock is severe. Depending on the course the virus takes and the depth and duration of the downturn it causes, additional support from both monetary and fiscal policies may be called for.
Concluding Remarks The coronavirus pandemic poses the most serious threat to maximum employment and, potentially, to price stability that the United States has faced in our lifetimes. There is much that policymakers—and epidemiologists—simply do not know right now about the potential course that the virus, and thus the economy, will take.