Federal Reserve Bank Chief: Need 6-Week Lockdown To Save Economy

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Two prominent Minnesotans are calling for a six-week lockdown in order to save the economy. Michael T. Osterholm and Neel Kashkari say a strict, nationwide lockdown is needed to "crush" the coronavirus pandemic.

Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and Kashkari is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

"The path of the virus will determine the path of the economy. There won’t be a robust economic recovery until we get control of the virus," the two wrote in The New York Times.

"If we do this aggressively, the testing and tracing capacity we’ve built will support reopening the economy as other countries have done, allow children to go back to school and citizens to vote in person in November. All of this will lead to a stronger, faster economic recovery, moving people from unemployment to work."

Dozens of states initiated various versions of a lockdown in the spring before lifting them by the summer. Osterholm and Kashkari say those restrictions were ineffective because of their patchwork nature.

"The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country," they wrote. "For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential. To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible."

In recent weeks, cases of COVID-19 have spiked across the nation as businesses and public spaces began to reopen. More than 163,200 people have died from the virus in the U.S.

Read their full article at the New York Times.