In Wolf Warrior 2, the 2017 Chinese blockbuster that became the country’s highest-grossing film of all time, a former special ops soldier in Africa defeats Western mercenaries, rescues trapped factory workers, and protects the vaccine for the Ebola-like “Lamanla” virus that a Chinese doctor discovered.

Normalcy. What would you trade to get it back? How deep into your pockets would you dive to regain the life you had just three months ago? 

Forget it! It’s not only that, as North Carolina writer Thomas Wolfe said years ago, “You can’t go home again.” It’s not just that the past is a superficially or nostalgically different place. The past, we are discovering during this incredible “reopening” process, will prove to have been profoundly different in the fundamentals. But we will not be returning to those fundamentals. 

Suppliers expect to have so much crude oil on their hands next month they don’t know where they will put it all. That’s why one benchmark for the price of American oil briefly got as low as minus $37.63 on Monday. By Tuesday, it rose back above zero.

New COVID-19 infections and deaths showed signs of slowing in Italy and Spain over the weekend. That spark of hope fueled a jump in markets around the world on Monday morning.

Where were the gains? U.S. stocks climbed more than 4 percent as trading opened, with similar gains in Europe and Asia. Markets have struggled since a dramatic increase in coronavirus infection rates caused businesses to shut down around the world. Crude oil fell again, however, after some gains the prior week when investors thought Saudi Arabia and Russia would cut back on production.

Empty spaces throughout the country testify to the economic vacuum the coronavirus pandemic brought with it. The Simon Property Group announced Wednesday it would close all 200 of its shopping malls and outlet centers. Major automakers are shutting down their North American factories. And the New York Stock Exchange will lock up its trading floors and move to all-electronic trading on Monday. The number of Americans filing for unemployment surged last week by 70,000 to the highest level in more than two years.

The U.S. stock market saw its worst loss in more than three decades on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 3,000 points after President Donald Trump said a recession may be on the way. But the markets remain volatile: The Dow opened higher on Tuesday, fell by about 600 points, and then evened out to its Monday closing level again—all in the first hour or so of trading.

The stock market tumbled again on Thursday. The COVID-19 outbreak continues to disrupt the American economy despite an effort from President Donald Trump to calm investor’s fears on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell Thursday by more than 2,000 points, triggering a temporary halt in trading.