In the absence of such a framework, the purpose of some of the government’s policy responses has been unclear, as has the relationship between the public-health and economic measures Washington is taking. Policy makers are acting as if we face a binary choice between letting a deadly disease run rampant or strangling our economy, making every proposed course of action seem irresponsible. In fact, their objective should be precisely to avoid such a trade-off, by defining the relationship between our aims.

The purpose of our strategy should be to create a sustainable way to live with the virus, not secure its total defeat. We could not have achieved that sustainable balance by gradually gearing down our society from normal life, because in the meantime we would be erring on the side of danger and exacerbating the enormous burdens on our health system. Instead, we need to gear up from a drastic shutdown of American life. That drastic shutdown is what we are now engaged in, and it makes sense. But gearing up from that, starting relatively soon, has to be our goal.

Right now, we need to pause. In order to restrain the spread of the virus, we have put our lives on hold—with work, school, and play all shut down to let us keep our distance from one another. That means that public policy intended to enable this phase must aim to let people keep their place in our national life until they can return to it.

But this isn’t how policy makers have approached the problem. Their response to the immense economic costs of the public-health policies we are pursuing has instead focused on providing economic stimulus, an approach reflected in some parts of the bill negotiated in the Senate in recent days. But stimulus is the wrong way to think about what’s needed. We need to make the pause sustainable until economic life can resume. That means we should prioritize ways of preventing a loss of place in our economy—especially by helping businesses maintain payrolls, hold on to facilities, and meet economic obligations while they are effectively closed.

The British, for instance, have launched a job-retention policy, with the government covering 80 percent of the salaries of workers furloughed because of the pandemic (up to the median income) provided employers do not fire them. This creates a massive incentive for employers to hold on to their workforce during the crisis. It won’t be cheap, but it is a more effective use of public money than direct payments to households to sustain demand, when such demand can have no real outlet.

Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha: Don’t halt social distancing. Instead, do it right.

We should think along similar lines, and also find ways to help companies pay rent and meet other financial obligations while the public-health emergency persists. The legislation hammered out in recent days does some of that, and will be helpful. But more will be needed, and further steps should more explicitly help people keep their place in the economy. Although we are probably in for a significant recession, our economy is not best understood to be contracting. It is paused.