LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Britain’s economy looks to be heading for the deep freeze. That was the takeaway on Wednesday from the country’s finance minister Rishi Sunak, who is preparing to take the country’s borrowing to nearly 400 billion pounds just as estimates for a rapid recovery next year have been scaled back. Brexit could make things even worse. Sunak unveiled the epic economic cost of Covid-19. Despite paying wages of furloughed workers since April and extending grants to keep businesses afloat, the overall cost of the health emergency will lead to an 11.3% economic contraction in 2020. The imbalance between 1.2 trillion pounds of spending and 770 billion pounds of tax receipts is equivalent to 19% of economic output. The best antidote to such grisly figures is growth. Unfortunately, the Office for Budget Responsibility also slashed its growth forecast for 2021 from 8.7% in July to just 5.5%. Even in its central scenario, the OBR thinks the virus will leave UK debt at 105% of GDP by 2025, with a 3.9% deficit, and create long-term scarring worth 3% of GDP. And if Britain chooses to combine quitting the European Union with no deal on trade relations, that could knock another 2% off national output. Given he’s already spending huge sums keeping workers afloat via the furlough scheme, it might seem churlish to chastise Sunak for not coming up with a meatier fiscal stimulus. But if there’s ever a good time to over-deliver, it’s now. The International Monetary Fund recently estimated that every 1% of public investment could boost GDP by 2.7%, and private investment by 10%. So far, Sunak’s main offering is an already flagged 27 billion pound infrastructure plan and a delay on tax hikes for now. The other main measures - a contentious cut to foreign aid from 0.7% to 0.5% and a public sector pay freeze – won’t exactly get the economy motoring. With nearly 56,000 Covid-19 related deaths, the UK has the highest mortality rate for the disease in Europe, and infection rates are stubbornly high. Health minister Matt Hancock has promised a mass vaccine rollout by March, just as the furlough scheme ends. In the meantime, the British public needs encouragement to spend. If they’re keeping track of the horrible state of the UK economy, they may not do.