Coronavirus recession was shortest on record, economists say

The coronavirus recession hit like a derailed train, was hugely destructive — and ended in just two months.

The economic downturn that broke out early last year with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic officially ended in April 2020, making it the shortest recession on record, according to the committee of economists that determines when recessions begin and end. The U.S. economy reached a peak in February 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Dating Committee said Monday, and the recession began the following month. It ended in April.