Ed Harrison said he is surprised at how negative the sentiment already seems to be around releasing from lockdown and noted that the reality of this current recession may finally be sinking in. He told Real Vision’s Daily Briefing today that he thinks people are realizing that a V-shaped recovery is never going to happen and asset prices are starting to fall because of it.

Harrison said he is looking at the Belgian economy to see how jobs losses are affecting the economy and quoted a statistic that said 250,000 jobs there are at risk of being permanently eliminated because of the crisis. He said some sectors – retail in particular – would certainly not survive a second lockdown and that he considers what happens in Belgium a leading indicator of what can happen in the US.

Because of this, we’re in what Harrison calls a permanent post-lockdown scenario; the fallout from the first was so great that there’s no way we’re going back into lockdown, he said.

Of course, the trajectory of the virus post-lockdown and governments’ response to the crisis will have a major hand in determining the winners and losers once everything plays out. Harrison said countries like Iceland and Greece, who have sufficiently ramped up testing capacity, could see their economies recover more quickly, since their governments’ preparedness will help prevent new outbreaks and attract tourism once people begin traveling again.

In countries where governments don’t have the systems in pace to deal with life post-lockdown, economies will suffer. Harrison echoed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s warning to the Senate today, saying that being unprepared may cause outbreaks we can’t control – and when consumers begin to panic again, the economy will inevitably see more devastation.