MARTY WALSH IS THE FIRST to admit that dealing with a global pandemic was never among the challenges he imagined facing as Boston mayor. “The last thought in my mind — it wasn’t even a thought in my mind — was that we were going to be dealing with a worldwide pandemic,” he says on this week’s Codcast.

But he’s been doing just that for more than 10 weeks, freezing construction work in Boston, standing up a rental relief program, and overseeing a set of city initiatives aimed at ensuring  care for the homeless and other vulnerable groups amidst the coronavirus crisis.

“It’s life and death, and the decisions we make have to be quick,” says Walsh. “They have to be precise and you can’t second guess it and worry about what people are going to say.”

The state is beginning a phased reopening, but Walsh is not particularly sanguine that we’re past the worst of the outbreak. “I do not think the worst is behind us. I still think it’s in front of us,” he says. “Listening to the experts, they’re all telling us that there’s going to be a resurgence in the fall.”