COVID's $16 trillion toll on the US

COVID-19 will end up costing the U.S. $16 trillion, or four times the cost of the Great Recession, according to two economists. The former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and fellow Harvard University economist David Cutler wrote in an essay for the Journal of the American Medical Association that half of their estimate is linked to lost gross domestic product due to lockdowns and the ongoing pandemic, with the other half stemming from health-related losses. 

In other global news about the pandemic:

• The International Monetary Fund eased its projection for global economic contraction this year, forecasting that gross domestic product will shrink 4.4% instead of 5.2% seen in June.
• The European Union aims to come up with a coordinated system of travel restrictions to try and stop the spread of coronavirus.
• Spain declared a state of emergency, with 7,000 new infections a day, compared with 134 cases in June.