1.Read through the following excerpt from Euractiv reporting on European Central Bank (ECB) Monetary policy stance during the Covid pandemic and then answer the question which appears at the end of the excerpt. .

Excerpt from Euractiv The Capitals 04 August 2020

The European Central Bank is committed to supporting the Eurozone's economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, using its massive bond purchases as its main tool, chief economist Philip Lane said on Tuesday 04 August 2020.

Lane's comments were likely to fuel market expectations the ECB would increase its 1.35 trillion Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) as soon as September when the central bank updates its economic forecasts. He downplayed a recent rebound in economic data, warning a full recovery would take a long time and require stimulus from the ECB as well as governments to compensate for households incomes declining and jobs being destroyed.

"While there has been some rebound in economic activity, the level of economic slack remains extraordinarily high and the outlook highly uncertain," Lane said in a blog post, "for our part, the ECB is committed to providing the monetary stimulus needed." Lane's post broke the ECB's silence on policy matters since the ECB President Christine Lagarde's last press conference, on July 16 2020. Since then, survey indicators continued to point to recovery after a record slump in the second quarter of the year.

But a surge in new coronavirus cases in the United States has helped push the euro to its highest since mid-2018 against the dollar at $1.1908, a drawback for the eurozone, which relies on exports. This has fuelled market speculation for an increase in the bank purchase programme, which was expanded and extended in June.Lane said any change to the scheme, currently, the main tool in the ECB's policy arsenal would depend on the inflation outlook.

Having read the above please answer the question immediately here below:

Drawing on the macroeconomic theories that you have learned how would you characterize the monetary policies of the ECB as described in the article. What is the relevance of the "extraordinarily high slack" to which the chief economist of the ECB refers? And what is the linkage of monetary policy considerations to the inflation outlook?