Irina Ivanova
CBS News
A top adviser to President-elect Joe Biden floated the possibility of shutting down the U.S. economy for several weeks to help contain the coronavirus.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease specialist and a member of Mr. Biden's recently appointed COVID-19 advisory team, spoke with Yahoo! Finance on Wednesday about measures the U.S. could take to curtail the virus' spread. One option he said is worth considering: Imposing a four-to-six week shutdown of the country while providing workers, small business owners and local governments with hundreds of billions in financial aid to tide them over, he noted.
"We have a big pool of money out there that we could borrow, at historic low interest rates by the federal government. We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers, losses to small companies and medium-sized companies, for cities, states, county governments," Osterholm said in the interview. Read more >>