It is, of course, the world's largest economy.

On today.

We have learned that in the 1st 3 months of this year it shrank at an annual rate of 4.8%.

The country has introduced look down measures to slow the spread of Corona virus, which has killed more than 58,000 people there.

And, as you can see from this graph that the U.

S.

Economy has suffered the shoppers drop since the financial crisis.

More than a decade again, it ends the longest expansion in U.

S.

History as Corona virus virtually shot down the country.

But the figures don't actually reflect the full extent of this crisis, since the country did not begin its look down measures until March.

So, as the economist Mohamed el Arraign points out on Twitter, the next quarter could see the U.

S economy contracted by as much as 40% where he is outlining what this will mean.

It's a battle against global depression, and what today's number tells you is two things.

One is the urgency off containing the damage so that short term hits don't become long term hits and that's the second issue it tells you is that we've got to build a runway for medical advances, to be able to sort out this lives.

That's livelihood equation and importantly, not just to win the war against a Depression, but to secure the peace.

We failed to do that in 2000 and eight.

We won the war against depression then, but we didn't secure peace off high, sustainable, inclusive growth.

Today's number tells you that even now we have to think about winning the war and securing the peace well.

Despite the threats to economic growth, the U.

S.

Federal Reserve's has said that they will be keeping interest rates between North on 0.25%.

The former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says that containing the Corona virus outbreak is still America's primary concern.

We do know that economic downturns cast a substantial shadow forward on the people who are gonna be the victims of this in many cases of the people who are coming out of school into a very weak economy, and studies show that people who come out of school during very difficult times the impact of that is they air 20 years later, on their wages and the quality of the jobs they have.

So it's a very big deal to do what we can, everything we can to support the economy through this period.

But we need to remember that it all starts with the virus.

People are terrified.

Toe work with others were terrified to go into a store.

You can do whatever you want with interest rates, and you can have whatever fiscal policy want.

But you're still gonna have an economy that's weakened of the decision over how and when to reopen.

The U.

S economy has caused new divides amongst Americans, and Nick Bryant has been speaking to some of them in New York.

I can't even wrap my head around it.

It's incredible.

Steve Margarette Lorenzo road building firm in Staten Island, which he fears will be bankrupt by June.

He's a Trump supporter who believes the Democrats who run New York being too cautious.

If I'm not working in this economy is not opened up in these fearmongers, don't back off where they got everybody scared to death.

We'll go out of business, Steve.

It's a vicious virus up had it myself.

You accept that and I'm sorry to hear that the reality of it is people are going to continue to get sick.

I don't think they're going to continue to get sick in any alarming rate.

We're seeing more beggars on New York streets.

This is Harlem, a many African American community severely hit by this health and economic contagion.

And this is upscale SoHo, the home of high end retail boarded up like a hurricane is about to rip through which, economically, it has every single shutdown day.

Public health officials such as Danielle Import, who live in these communities worn against the rush to reopen People are hurting financially.

They're struggling to feed their families.

But we really need to take the slow, because I would hate for us to have to shut down the economy again if we get more cases.

So some of the perspectives from New York will hear Samir Hussein with more on the tug of war, which is happening in the US over public health and economic growth.

We're seeing lots of different state level governments are really trying to grapple with, which is why you're seeing that in parts of the country and places like Georgia for example, you're seeing some slow reopening.

But of course, the great fear is if you start to reopen parts of the economy too quickly, are you going to spark yet another Corona virus wave, and will that be even more serious?

But there's no way to discount the kinds of severe economic numbers that we're seeing.

And when you want to talk about like these economic disparities, it certainly is being evidence here in New York again, we saw a part of that in Nick's package.

The economic disparities that exist in New York this pandemic is there is no doubt it is going to exacerbate those, and that is one of the challenges.

Just how do you try and protect all of the citizens again while trying to reopen the economy, knowing full well just the economic tsunami that is coming through this country?