COVID-19 has plunged the United States into a national emergency. Initial applications for unemployment insurance benefits increased from 211,000 in the first week of March to 6.6 million in the first week of April, to another 5.2 million in the second week of April, and another 4.4 million last week. Real GDP fell by hundreds of billions in the first quarter, with further—and larger—declines sure to follow. Another emergency has sprung not so much from the disease itself as from the reactions...





