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Business Daily: Coronavirus: Can the risk be contained?

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Coronavirus: can the risk be contained?

16/03/2020 GMT

Coronavirus: Can the risk be contained?

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Coronavirus: Can the risk be contained?

The US has slashed interest rates, and public life is halting across the Western world

The US Fed has slashed interest rates and announced a huge stimulus package, and public life is grinding to a halt as America and Europe go into lockdown.

The US has cut interest rates to almost zero and launched a $700bn stimulus programme in a bid to protect the economy from the effect of coronavirus. 

Ed Butler asks Chris Ralph, chief global strategist at St. James’s Place Wealth, whether anything can prop up the financial markets and minimise the economic impact as the US and Europe go into lockdown, with governments shutting down nightlife and ordering the elderly to stay home.

Professor Liam Smeeth, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, talks to us live about how much these measure can help contain the virus. Can we expect the virus to ease off as the northern hemisphere heads towards summer? When and how will the pandemic end? And what is the best strategy to contain or at least limit the pathogen's progress?

(Picture: President Trump at a White House press conference on Sunday; Credit: Getty Images)

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