Editorial Director
WASHINGTON, D.C. — “As long as the virus is a threat, it will have a negative impact on economic growth,” Deloitte’s Chief Global Economist Ira Kalish said during a session at this year’s completely virtual National Retail Federation (NRF) trade show.
Underlining the extreme impacts of the pandemic, Kalish told the online audience that 2020 was a “year like no other. We saw the sharpest decline ever in real GDP in the second quarter, followed by the sharpest increase in GDP in the third quarter.”
In the midst of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and the outbreak of a new strain of COVID-19, economic growth is likely to be very slow this year, although a successful rollout of the vaccine could bode well for a robust recovery at the end of this year and into 2022, according to the economist.