Senior editor, Ash Bennington, joins managing editor, Ed Harrison, to reckon with the idea of whether a COVID-19 vaccine will be the “medical bailout” everyone is staking their hopes on. Ash and Ed give an overview of where many major nations are currently in their battle against the pandemic and consider if this new normal is truly sustainable in the long-term. They also discuss the continued move toward a virtual world, how this is an omen of absolute collapse in certain industries, and how the pandemic has become a politically charged subject in the midst of a US election cycle. In the intro, Nick Correa shares some of the data from the Household Pulse Survey, revealing the ways fiscal stimulus has made up a portion of aggregate spending for American consumers.