Active and concerted policy efforts were deployed by major economies, with extraordinary monetary easing and fiscal stimulus undertaken together with financial bailouts. And thanks to these efforts the world economy was able to avoid another Great Depression, although not the Great Recession.
Moreover, shorter-term loans under these programs were relatively quick to roll off the Fed's balance sheet. In fact, most of the lending programs expired by late 2020. And some of the emergency securities purchase programs, such as the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, sold the securities they had purchased during their wind-down phases.