Thursday, 17 December 2020, 7:36 pm The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has been a truly global shock to public health, causing one of the most severe global economic downturns since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Against this context, the 2020 ADBI Annual Conference brought together leading academics, think tank researchers, and policy makers to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 and its policy implications, with a focus on Asia and the Pacific. In the opening remarks, ADBI Dean Tetsushi Sonobe stressed the uncertainty ahead regarding the duration of the health threat posed by the pandemic, and that resolving this threat and harnessing economic recovery will depend to a large extent on how the