Pre-print, Working paper: Can a policy-independent epidemic dynamics change agents' optimal consumption-investment decisions and by so much so that an economy based on human capital and labor à la Lucas (1988) would reach a steady state and stagnate instead of thriving and reaching a Balanced Growth Path? We prove here that, under strictly decreasing returns on human capital, the economy will optimally reach a steady state in levels. Conversely, under constant returns, the economy will experience a balanced growth either from the beginning if preferences are logarithmic, or asymptotically otherwise.