The spread of Covid-19 has shaken people’s lives around the globe in an extraordinary way, threatening health, disrupting economic activity, and hurting wellbeing and jobs. Since our last Economic Outlook update, in early March, multiple virus outbreaks evolved into a global pandemic, moving too fast across the globe for most healthcare systems to cope with effectively. To reduce the spread of the virus and buy time to strengthen healthcare systems, governments had to shut down large segments of economic activity. At the time of writing, the pandemic has started to recede in many countries, and activity has begun to pick up. The health, social and economic impact of the outbreak could have been considerably worse without the dedication of healthcare and other essential workers who continued to serve the public, putting their own health at risk in doing so.