, Columnist
The Coronavirus Trade-Off Was Always an Illusion
Lockdown or not, there is no alternative to conquering the disease if economies are to recover.
Lockdown-free Sweden is hardly thriving.
Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg/Bloomberg
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After at least three months of furious debate over the rival merits of fighting the pandemic and keeping the economy alive, it looks ever more as though this was a false dichotomy. The disease needs to be beaten. Even if it is not as terrifying as some made it seem a few months ago, the economy cannot function on full throttle until the virus has been bottled up and defeated.