COVID-19: Business recovery scenarios

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world we live in. Physical distancing measures and restrictions on people’s lives now affect over half the world’s population, and economic activity has fallen significantly due to the lockdown restrictions put in place. As governments implement policies to limit the spread of the virus, the extent of both the epidemiological and economic impactremains unclear.

This report looks to provide some of the latest views around the impacts of COVID-19 and seeks to explore the implications of the ongoing public policy response through a scenarios based approach. The scenarios presented are a subjective – yet insight-driven – view of four possible futures that Arup has identified as both plausible and consistent with our current understanding of the nature of the pandemic and the likely impacts on our economies.