italy has reported nearly 500 extra deaths from coronavirus, the highest—one—day toll of any nation. it brings the country's total to nearly 3000. more than a third of all coronavirus fatalities now originate from the country. world markets are continuing their downward spiral, with new york stocks plunging off the back of european losses. the european central bank has announced an $820 billion emergency package to try to reduce the impact of the pandemic, as analysts warn the virus could send the world economy into recession. the us has ramped up its response to the coronavirus. president trump has closed his country's border with canada and invoked a wartime law to increase supplies of vital equipment to fight what he's called the ‘invisible enemy'. now on bbc news,

a change to our advertised programme, it's hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. leaders around the world have the language of war, to capture the scale of the threat posed by coronavirus. but are they deploying the right weaponry! notjust to protect public health, but to prevent a worldwide economic depression. my guest is laurence boone, chief economist at the global economic forum in the oecd. will we get the dramatic co—ordinated emergency intervention required to stave off economic disaster?

laurence boone in paris, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, thanks for the invitation. it is a pleasure to have you on the show, your own president, president macron talks about a war. has country in the world being engaged in a war against coronavirus. do you see that actions are matching the words when it comes to trying to say that the world economy? there are actually three fronts on which we have two fight this battle. health, financial and social. with health, i think there

could be more cooperation with the who because at the moment it is about data collection, provision of supplies, equipment, and testing. there seems to be a little black. 0n economic and finance, we are actually seeing a lot happening stopping many governments are putting in place measures to address the healthcare system, but also people to make sure they can support people to make sure they can support people during this virus as well and firms make sure that firms do not go under with the hardship that is going on at the moment. but there is this question of urgency, because you talk about individuals, businesses, the fact is that on both levels, corporate and individual, people are running out of money. they are literally running out of money and while leaders are now talking big in terms of their risk a nswe i’s , talking big in terms of their risk answers, is it happening quickly

enough? economics and finance, as you rightly put it, most countries are extending options and talking about even writing checks to households who do not have employment insurance. there may be some left, some people who still need more super, but i think not a lot really is being done and in france there is equally many measures, you have first tax and charges suspension, vat reduction in some countries and social contribution of taxes on wages being postponed, and central banks making sure that banks have the liquidity which is necessary for firms to keep afloat, and the same with the credit that they have to repay, there is also suspension and mediation, so

againi also suspension and mediation, so again i think on this front, quite a lot is being done. we will go through some of the detailed responses, the ways in which governments are using fiscal policy in ways which we have been sent 2008 and in some cases much further even than that, but before we go into the detail, just one point for you. you say plenty is being done on the financial and economic front, but the markets are still in a state of panic. we see plungers of five or six or even up to 10% in markets across the world on a daily basis. some people are saying that that level of panic, that level of volatility is so damaging that there may be, in the short run, a case for suspending market operations for days, maybe even weeks. what do you think of that? regarding market suspension, as i am sure you know, it happened once in the us, the stock market was closed for a week

in the wake of 9/11, so we know this may happen. it's obviously not desirable because it's complicating matters a little but there has been talks and we know it has happened. would you favour it? you are a very experienced economist and a wonder at times if, the way in which the markets work and of course short sellers are at work and many of the major market. may be that actually exaggerates the amount of damage being done to corporate life? actually, central banks, as you know, have deployed also a lot of measures, and what we are observing is central banks are becoming, have been super efficient at targeting a segment of the market that is not functioning properly because of this uncertainty we are describing. for

example, you had the us yesterday really intervening on the deposit certificate side of the market, which is, as you know, funding firms in the short term, and that sort of allocated and really corrected some of the distortion. so for the time being, addressing this market distortion, temporary suspension when things are moving too fast is probably wise, and then we can consider different measures. all right. you are a global economic research centre and forum. where do you see the biggest weaknesses and problems going forward? china appears, let us not predict too much, but china appears to have some sort of significant control now over new cases of coronavirus, over the spread, whereas there is great concern that in the united states, for humble, partly because of the nature of the system there, the

balance between federal and state agencies, the lack of a social safe in itand agencies, the lack of a social safe in it and socialised healthcare service, there is a feature that the united states could become the biggest problem in the coronavirus crisis. what is your analysis? you point the finger exactly on one of the key issues which is that the way this is being addressed varies a lot depending on the region. and sometimes, governments wait and little too long until they see an increase in cases before acting. so again, ithink increase in cases before acting. so again, i think that is why it is super important that they start co—ordinating on what is the best approach, what is the best containment measure, what's the best about travel bands and borders. so which countries are you most concerned about right now? when you

look at the nature of their response? i think you rightly pointed out the countries that do not have usual safety net, automatic stabilisers, employment insurance system and so on because they have to go an extra mail in doing that. you are suggesting the united states has a systemic problem?” you are suggesting the united states has a systemic problem? i am not suggesting that, because they have a fully moved ahead very forcefully as you know, they came out yesterday with very big numbers. they are even considering, which is what one should do when there is a restriction, which is writing checks to people to make sure that they will receive something and can go through the crisis some income. why do you think that we are not seeing the level of global co—ordination at leader level in this crisis as we

saw for example after the financial crash of 2008 and the way the g20 leadership group responded. if my quote to you the former uk foreign secretary david miliband, he says i am afraid it speaks to the age that we are living in, there is very little international co—ordination, each country is doing its own thing, fighting for itself, and that heightens the danger. we shouldn't be that negative, there is some co—ordination stopping the g7 has issued a very forceful communication and that was not an easy thing in the circumstances, and that brings me... i've got to stop you, you are clearly a natural born optimist, but donald trump called this the chinese virus. he closed flights from europe without even telling the europeans. you can hardly argue to me that we

are seeing successful international co—ordination. are seeing successful international co-ordination. he said that before he finally moved to sign the g7 communique, so you may see that there are a glimpse of hope, but i think that you are right that this is also the sign of times. we have had trade tension, pressure on militarism, difficult international dialogue, and this is naturally reflecting today that they have to do an extra mail and it is not as natural as it was in 2008 and 2009 to work together and act in a co—ordinated manner, but you say i am an optimist, the fact that we have seen something with the g7, i think is a sign that this might be changing slightly in regard of the magnitude of the crisis we are getting across. all right, let's talk magnitude and let's not be

optimist or pessimist but realistic. iam very optimist or pessimist but realistic. i am very mindful thatjust a few days ago, you at the 0ecd issued your latest global economic assessment, and you took on board the dangers presented by coronavirus, and use it if it intensifies and it is extensive across the world, it could cut local growth to roughly 1.5% this year. —— global growth. but even now that looks absurdly unrealistic. are you now prepared to tell me that you think there is going to be a global recession as a result of what we are seeing, and as martin wolf, the esteemed financial times commentator, in all likelihood, a global depression. if you think about this downside scenario, what do we have in their when it said it is going to cut global growth by half. we had the northern hemisphere, the us, canada, and in the north and some asian pacific

countries, putting in place the same containment measures as what we have seen an containment measures as what we have seen an china, so i think they picked pretty well the situation we are in today. but first of all, that is not happening. i am speaking to you from the uk, people are not restricted in their travel by law. they are advised to do certain things and not do other things, but there isn't the draconian sort of imposition of controls that we have seen imposition of controls that we have seen and other european countries, so seen and other european countries, so it is a mixed bag, and in terms of that mixed bag, let's not forget what you have already said about america, the idea that a recession could be avoided now looks com pletely could be avoided now looks completely unrealistic. what we are doing at the 0ecd with all the economists there is monitoring underground, day by day, what is happening, and what they mean by thatis happening, and what they mean by that is we are looking sector by sector, what has closed, what is

working, how many people have stopped working. i will give you an example. tourism, globally, that is nearly 320 millionjobs. it is nearly 320 millionjobs. it is nearly 10% of the workforce and they are nearly all not working today, so there is a lot of uncertainty, we are trying to assess how things are going, and! are trying to assess how things are going, and i think we need to start really looking at what is happening country by country, which is why, what they have given you as a framework, but when we look more deeply into this, which is what we are doing now, then we see probably that yes, there is a higher risk of going further down than what we have seen so going further down than what we have seen so far. some you what about that word depression, prolonged recession, and economic slump. some are saying this could be post— second world war the most damaging. for the world economy

that have seen. would you say that he are beginning to feel that yourself? so it's definitely the biggest crisis in the most uncertain one as well that we have come across because that's the one on which we have less control, right? it's a virus. it's not liquidity. sure. so this effectively means that it could bea this effectively means that it could be a very, very big prices. that being said, i think the compass for us being said, i think the compass for us should be to try and have scenarios depending on how the virus epidemic evolves. if we are confined for a couple of months and we find a vaccine and then it's gone, you are going to accuse me again of erring on the optimistic side but there are lots of scenarios and it could be the virus clearly goes away but comes back in the winter or that we

struggle to actually