The shutdown of the economy caused by COVID-19 will reverberate into the second half of the year, the minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia's special March meeting show.

The minutes said the RBA would continue to support federal and state government stimulus packages and that it remained firmly opposed to negative interest rates.

"While it was not possible to provide an updated set of forecasts for the economy given the fluidity of the situation, it was likely that Australia would experience a very material contraction in economic activity, which would spread across the March and June quarters and potentially longer," the minutes said.

The central bank decided on March 18 to start a form of quantitative easing, cut official interest rates to a record low 0.25 per cent, and pump $90 billion of cheap loans into the system because sharemarkets were crashing and bond markets had become "dysfunctional".

"Members strongly supported the proposed policy response as a comprehensive package to complement the fiscal response announced by governments in Australia in the preceding week or so," the minutes said.