Pavlina R. Tcherneva says, as the world is at war with COVID-19, it must act accordingly, because the current pandemic will create mass unemployment, due to an “avalanche of layoffs,” that will bring “a wave of defaults, bankruptcies, and depressed profits.” As a result of “collapsing state and municipal tax revenues and business failures to impoverished communities, declining health outcomes, homelessness” and so on, governments must address popular despair and grievances.

The author reminds of how President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) responded, when America was in the grip of the Great Depression. He faced a “stricken” nation of closed banks, shut down factories, shattered confidence and millions without work or hope. But he insisted that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance".

FDR had to discard one of the clearest pledges of his March 4, 1933 inaugural speech – that the cost of government would be "drastically reduced" – when he saw that the only way forward was for the government to stimulate the economy, invest in great public works, feed the hungry and for a time employ millions who had nowhere else to turn. This was denounced as "make work", but to Roosevelt, it was better than no work.

What followed was the start of an onrushing period – a sweep of legislation that transformed America; then and in the years that followed, FDR reformed the free market and rebalanced it with the welfare state. He saved America's union during a civil war. He also saved the economic system and perhaps even the democratic institutions. Then, for the US and the world, he played an indispensable part, side by side with Winston Churchill, in saving freedom from the nightmare of fascism.

The Great Depression was worse than COVID-19. Yet FDR found a way to warn and reassure all Americans, all at once. What the author proposes are more immediately measures – like overseeing the logistics management – “building temporary field hospitals… and emergency health centers…….cranking up production of essential equipment and medication, staffing health facilities adequately, and establishing support services for the hungry, homeless, and most vulnerable.”

To curb the spread of the virus, it is imperative that people stay home, while receiving financial help, like deferring utility bills and tax payment etc. They must be given “income support in the form of extended unemployment insurance, food stamps, and housing benefits.”

Apparently the coronavirus-response package recently adopted by the US “does not go nearly far enough. As it stands, the legislation still would leave 80% of private-sector workers without medical and paid-leave coverage. The provision for free testing offers no solace to those who are already critically ill, or who will have lost their health insurance as a result of unemployment. The US should “use this occasion” to make universal paid leave and Medicare for all permanent policies.” Households need cash desperately and an emergency cash support like a $1,000 disbursement “has gotten Americans excited”

However Trump is no FDR, and there is no way that he handles the crisis competently. While some crises require the mobilisation of fiscal and monetary resources, war requires a robust movement against an enemy, and world leaders are resorting to martial metaphors to describe the massive response required to stem the coronavirus epidemic, which is primarily a public health crisis. But it’s also an economic crisis, and a crisis of public morale. Fear is widespread and mounting.

FDR did not grapple with a pandemic, but the economic crisis was incomparably worse.

Coronavirus is not the Great Depression, but it is becoming a national trauma. Roosevelt knew that in the midst of trauma, a leader has three responsibilities. The first is to tell the truth. The second is to take concrete steps to address both causes and symptoms. The third is to give people confidence that their nation “will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.”