The writer is chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Even if we are able to fight the coronavirus pandemic into submission, its effects are likely to spark nothing less than a rethink of how the world does business.
This outbreak has come at a time when globalisation was already under serious threat from the trade war between the US and China and growing uncertainty over the future of free trade in general. In the past, shocks to global supply chains, such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, were seen as one-off events. These temporary disturbances were not expected to seriously disrupt a successful and stable business model, built on the assumption that globalisation was here to stay.