US G.D.P. Declined in First Quarter, With Worse to Come

There is much worse to come. Widespread layoffs and business closings didn't hit until late March in most of the country. Economists expect figures from the current quarter, which will capture the shutdown's impact more fully, to show that G.D.P. contracted at an annual rate of 30 percent or more, a scale not seen since the Great Depression.

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"You could lift the restrictions tomorrow and the economy would still not come back if people don't feel safe to go out," she said. As a result, "measures that we normally consider to be public health measures are in this case a really important component of the economic policy response."

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"If we could be told right now with confidence that on X date, whenever X date is, the virus will be gone -- if we knew that now, I think businesses could plan accordingly and could make the right calculations," said Ms. Sinclair, the economist. "The problem is that we don't have that certainty, and there's no way to have that certainty. There's no way to promise when we can restart, and that uncertainty is what's killing our ability to do good economic policy."