Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell Thursday said the U.S. economy might already be in a recession because of measures taken to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus but said the pandemic must be contained before the economy can recover.

“We may well be in a recession,” the Fed chief said on NBC’s “Today." But “there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with our economy. People are being asked to step back from economic activity … so in principle, if we get the virus spread under control fairly quickly then economic activity can resume.”


He said he expected economic activity to “decline probably substantially” from April to June but that the recovery could begin in the second half of the year. “It’s very hard to say precisely when that will be,” he said. “The virus is going to dictate the timetable here.”