WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - The recession touched off by the coronavirus lasted only two months, ending with a "trough" reached in April 2020 just one months after a sharp drop in economic activity the month before, the U.S. Business Cycle Dating Committee announced Monday.

The committee, a group of macroeconomists that assign the start and endpoints on U.S. business cycles, said that while the country had by no means gotten back to normal operating capacity at that point, indicators of both jobs and production "point clearly to April 2020 as the month of the trough," with a rebound beginning in May.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider)