It is "wishful thinking" to expect the global economy to bounceback after the Coronavirus outbreak comes to an end, the head of the OECD has warned.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development secretary general, Angel Gurría, said the economic effects of the pandemic would be felt "for years to come".
Speaking to the BBC, he warned that the latest forecasts that suggest the outbreak would have global economic growth to 1.5% already 'looked optimistic'.
Mr Gurría warned that many of the world's largest economies are highly likely to fall into recession in the short-term, and called on governments to shelve spending rules to allow for quick testing and treatment.
He said: "Even if you don't get a worldwide recession, you're going to get either no growth or negative growth in many of the economies of the world, including some of the larger ones, and therefore you're going to get not only low growth this year, but also it's going to take longer to pick up in the in the future."
Mr Gurría said economies are suffering a bigger shock that following the 9/11 terror attack and financial crisis in 2008. He explained: "And the reason is that we don't know how much it's going to take to fix the unemployment because we don't know how many people are going to end up unemployed. We also don't know how much it's going to take to fix the hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises who are already suffering."
"It was already then mostly wishful thinking," he said.
"I do not agree with the idea of a 'V' shaped phenomenon ... Right now we know it's not going to be a 'V'. It's going to be more in the best of cases like a 'U' with a long trench in the bottom before it gets to the recovery period. We can avoid it looking like an 'L', if we take the right decisions today."
