We are in a Woody Allen nuclear bomb dilemma. The erstwhile popular actor and comic looked at the threat of the nuclear bomb during the Cold War and declared: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

With us, one ruinous path is aggressive restrictions that kill the economy. The other path is going back to normalcy too quickly, which escalates infections and deaths, which then would cook the economy and crash the stock market again!

It’s the economy versus the Coronavirus. Western Australia and Queensland are leading the way with the big gamble, easing of restrictions. And it comes as the Business Council of Australia says we lost $200 billion dollars of income and production in the first month of closures and lockdowns.

Month two would take the loss to $280 billion and if we hibernate for the six months the Prime Minister initially talked about, then the cost of killing COVID-19 would be $400 billion! Being a $2 trillion economy, that’s nearly a 20% loss of the income and production that drives jobs and our related economic well-being.

So it’s no wonder that there are business and politicians who are asking: “Is the cost of the cure worse than the virus?” Right now, the PM Scott Morrison wants social restrictions eased by mid-May but the pressure from WA and Qld breaking ranks and allowing bigger gatherings (such as family of 10 get togethers in WA) will mean other Premiers will be pressured to revise their thinking.

“When” we get released from home detention and are allowed to socialize again will have a huge bearing on how the economy and our social lives recover. The Australian’s Joe Kelly points to an Ernst & Young report that shows a V-shaped recovery is a chance if we ‘get out of jail’ and have substantial relaxation of restrictions by June.

So the PM’s start date of mid-May doesn’t represent a huge threat to our potential economic comeback but clearly, the sooner the better. But that rests on the hope that an early release of restrictions doesn’t lead to a debilitating second wave of infections.

It’s a gamble, no matter how you look at it.

We economists have an alphabet-fetish when it comes to economic recoveries. An up and down quick collapse and bounce back is a V-shaped recovery. The economy dropping and then hovering at low economic growth levels before eventually recovering is a U-shaped recovery. But the worst kind is L-shaped, where we drop and then just go sideways at low levels for a damn long time.

While that’s not expected by local experts, it can’t be dismissed, especially if going back to normalcy early leads to substantial second-wave infections. If a second wave leads to short-term fears that prove to be exaggerated to the negative, then we could see a W-recovery where we go down, go up, down again and then eventually move to a more permanent recovery.

Any second-wave scares in coming weeks would spook the stock market. The severity of any such wave will determine how big any future drop in stock prices would be.

So it’s gambling time and the Government wants us to download an APP that will help detect and track potential virus problems. Effectively, it helps Canberra’s medico experts do the form on the virus to see who’s winning — us or COVID-19!

It’s something out of George Orwell’s Big Brother or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where we download the COVIDSafe app to our phones, give our names, though we can give a nickname, age range, mobile no. and post code.

Those who download the software will be notified if they have contact with another user who tests positive for coronavirus. And Sky News this morning reported a million Aussies have downloaded the app!

ScoMo says the app will speed up the easing up of restrictions and its success should be intriguing to watch. It’s essentially a good idea but the privacy implications will rock and shock a lot of people.

The app will ping or exchange a “digital handshake” when one app carrier goes within 1.5 metres of another, logging the contact and encrypting it. It’s virtually a method to ‘out’ Coronavirus sufferers. You can see why it’s preferred by medical people and politicians but there could be a lots of Aussies who’d see it as unbelievably intrusive. The Government is promising strict usage rules but there’s a lot of us who think pollies don’t lie straight in bed, so many are bound to give this idea a wide berth.

Health Minister Hunt sees this as crucial for detecting, tracing and eliminating the virus and it would have terrific positive, economic implications. But the privacy intrusion issue will be a stumbling block for many Australians.

That said, if a few people in a workplace download the app it will be a potential identifier of a potential virus problem in the area. Tracking, detecting and isolating have been at the core of Iceland’s success in beating the Coronavirus. And you can see why our politicians can see the value in the app, given our great performance dealing with the virus ourselves.

It’s the ultimate gamble — give up some of our personal privacy to get back to work, restaurants and footie matches ASAP.  It will be intriguing to see how the app is sold to the community. The greater the number who download the app, the greater the knowledge of what the virus is doing.

Over the weekend the AFR reported that economists have linked a rebound in the economy to the reopening of retail stores, cafes and restaurants. Deutsche Bank Australia’s chief economist, Phil O'Donoghue, said the opening up of retail and restaurants would help boost consumption “but that's probably some time away.

“Before then, the economic impact is going to be small,” he said. “Schools don't make much economic activity difference.”

Usually on my beat (the economy, business and the stock market) I have the training, experience and confidence to make strong calls. But I’m no pandemic expert, so whatever I say we should do is a gamble plain and simple.

Let’s hope our politicians have “the wisdom to choose correctly.”