//A new paper finds stimulus checks, small business aid, and “reopening” can’t rescue the economy

A new paper finds stimulus checks, small business aid, and “reopening” can’t rescue the economy

Asia Mei, owner of Moonshine 152, had to shut down her restaurant due to Covid-19 on April 22. Her corner restaurant and bar served the local South Boston community. | John Tlumacki/Boston Globe via Getty Images

Real-time data on how the economy responded to Covid-19 suggests the problem is the disease itself.

The coronavirus pandemic ripped through the American economy at an incredibly rapid pace — so rapidly that it’s been difficult for economists and others to understand what exactly is going on.

Our best data sources about the economy are wildly out of date: Unemployment data comes out just once a month, and GDP data only four times a year. However, a new data source put together by a research group at Harvard, drawing on a variety of corporations’ private data, now allows economists to track what has happened to the economy