Don't assume there'll be a 'a post-COVID-19 era' - historian Niall Ferguson tells World Vs Virus

"I don't think we should assume there'll be a post-COVID-19 era, any more than there's a post-influenza era, or a post-tuberculosis era, or a post-AIDS era."

That's the assessment of historian Niall Ferguson, the main guest of this week's World Vs Virus podcast.

"There are a whole bunch of diseases that we simply learn to live with as a species, because we can't eradicate them and we can't successfully vaccinate against them. It's better at this point to imagine a world with COVID-19, rather than a world after it," he says.

And the author of The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World has a stark prediction for the financial recovery in the post-COVID - or perhaps rather 'with-COVID' - world.

"We are now in the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression, and it's moving faster. The big question is: can we get out of it equally quickly?

"If you look at the forecasts that investment banks produce – and indeed governments – you get these wonderful V-shape projections suggesting that we'll be back to where we were at the end of 2019 by some point in 2021. If you believe that, I'll sell you a bridge ... because there's no way this is going to be a V-shaped recovery."

Also on the podcast: 3 books for a time of COVID:

Tariq Al Olaimy, of think-do-tank 3BL Associates shared three books he thinks anyone should read now.

Find all previous episodes of World Vs Virus here.

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