The recovery from the shock of Covid-19 was quicker and stronger than anybody expected a year-and-a-half ago. This we owe to a big scientific and organisational achievement: the development and mass production of effective vaccines. A depressingly large proportion of humanity is suspicious of this modern miracle. Yet this success and the recovery it has brought with it are not unalloyed joys: they bring new anxieties and challenges. That is the best way to read the latest World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report from the IMF.

The biggest concern must be over the pandemic itself. As of late September 2021, 58 per cent of the population of high-income countries was fully vaccinated, against 36 per cent in emerging economies and a miserable 4 per cent in low-income countries. More than half of the world’s countries are not on track to vaccinate 40 per cent of their populations this year. The report assumes sufficient success with the global vaccination programme to bring Covid-19 under control by the end of next year. But the slow rollout increases the risk that new variants will falsify this hope.

The economic recovery, too, brings a number of significant concerns. Overall, it is strong, with global economic growth forecast at 5.9 per cent this year and 4.9 per cent next year. Both are almost exactly what was expected in July. Even so, the Fund forecasts significant economic scarring, with the signal exception of the US, whose output in 2024 it forecasts to be 2.8 percentage points higher than it did in January 2020. (See charts.)