Economic loss from coronavirus on a par with GFC

It has become clearer to us that the economic legacy of the coronavirus crisis will last a number of years. Our new forecast is that the economy will be about 5% smaller (£100bn) at the end of 2022 than would have been the case if coronavirus didn’t exist and that the cumulative loss of GDP in 2020, 2021 and 2022 as a whole will be about 24% (£500bn). That’s a similar loss to the one endured in the first three years after the financial crisis. This appears to be a more downbeat view than the consensus.