Fed's Kashkari advocates six-week economic lockdown to defeat the coronavirus

The U. S. economy needs an even more stringent shutdown than the last time if it's going to defeat the coronavirus, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said.

In a Friday New York Times op-ed he authored with Michael T. Osterholm, a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Kashkari argues that the government should issue a shelter-in-place order "for everyone but the truly essential workers" for up to six weeks.

March's lockdown, issued as the coronavirus became a pandemic, was not sufficiently stringent and has led to the U. S. lagging other stricter nations when it has come to containing Covid-19, they said. The result "could make what we have experienced so far seem like just a warm-up to a greater catastrophe... (Read more)

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