Question

Logically and rationally describe your opinion regarding the tradeoff between minimizing deaths from the coronavirus and restarting the economy?

How would you decide what to do (if you had the authority to make such a call)?

What should we do and when should we do it?

Answer 1

Mortality for COVID-19 appears higher than for influenza, especially seasonal influenza. While the true mortality of COVID-19 will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3-4%, the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) will be lower. For seasonal influenza, mortality is usually well below 0.1%. However, mortality is to a large extent determined by access to and quality of health care.

Current evidence on other coronavirus strains shows that while coronaviruses appear to be stable at low and freezing temperatures for a certain period, food hygiene and good food safety practices can prevent their transmission through food.

Parts of India have recorded dramatic falls in the number of deaths at a time when funeral parlours were bracing for a surge amid the coronavirus crisis. ome experts said the trend suggested that deaths from COVID-19, which are recorded separately and generally announced before overall mortality data, were not being under-reported as has happened in other countries.

But emergency room doctors, officials, and crematoriums noted that strict lockdowns had cut the number of road traffic accidents and deaths on India’s packed railways, and may also be deterring relatives from reporting a family death.

All over the world, mortality rates are being scrutinised to determine the true impact of the coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year and is known to have infected more than 2.7 million people globally, with nearly 190,000 deaths.

India took its first tentative steps towards restarting its stalled economy on Monday, as it relaxed its strict national lockdown to permit the limited resumption of industrial activities. But industry groups said uncertainty about supply chains and the strict conditions imposed on companies — including a requirement for workers to be housed in their industrial compounds and the inability to recall labourers who may have left — had made it tough for many businesses to resume production. The government’s decision to allow certain sectors to restart operations is intended to help alleviate a potential economic and humanitarian crisis. Nearly all the country’s economic activity has been suspended since March 22 and is set to continue to at least May 3 — a brutal blow to millions of workers who are now dependent on food handouts to survive. India has 17,264 confirmed coronavirus cases, of whom 543 have died, and 2,546 have recovered. Analysts say India’s lockdown has slowed the spread of the pathogen and the tally is doubling every 10 days. Concerns remain that India is under-testing and many coronavirus carriers may not be showing any symptoms at all.

need is mass testing that choices can be made on the basis of reliable data. South Korea is exhibit A. Many may question the accuracy of the Chinese data but the trend is clear and it’s difficult to imagine the lockdowns being lifted if the virus were not now largely contained.

COVID-19 spread so rapidly thanks to our interconnected world with its daily mass movement of people around the globe. Past epidemics from the Black Death in the 14th century to the Spanish Influenza in the early 20th century need to manage globally even before today’s hyper-globalised world. With globalisation spreading the virus faster, exponential growth in any one country is a risk to the rest of the world.

But in today’s interconnected world, information moves faster than the virus and we can learn from other countries’ experience more quickly. Many governments have squandered the lead time they had in preparing to fight the virus, exposing weaknesses of some kind or other in almost all governments and systems.

It’s not just the real-time experience from other countries that informs policy responses. As Barry Eichengreen reminds us in weeks, responses are heavily informed by narratives entrapped from history. ‘In seeking to avoid past mistakes, we risk committing new ones’.

The COVID-19 crisis is unlike past epidemics or economic crises and the differences must inform our responses to it, alongside the experience from other countries as it unfolds. It is a truly global virus that does not discriminate. Financial and economic contagion will move faster Although there’s a political instinct to deny it, one country’s problem is everyone’s problem.

Global cooperation is therefore essential to the remedy for COVID-19. More information sharing, cooperation and assistance across borders is the only path that avoids ongoing health and economic catastrophe. Yet there’s no obvious leader or institution to forge such cooperation strategies. The G20 has been ineffective with Saudi Arabia at the helm and the G7, stymied by US recalcitrance, more so. Strategic rivalry between China and the United States has turned up a notch, not been put aside, even during this global catastrophe. So far there’s been no catalyst to leadership on cooperation at the top. What’s needed and what’s yet to come is from the bottom up — countries and organisations not used to assuming a leadership role.