Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Only Saving Lives Will Save Livelihoods - The Right Way to Understand Pandemic Economics
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-05-13/only-saving-lives-will-save-livelihoods
By Rajeev Cherukupalli and Tom Frieden
May 13, 2020
The novel coronavirus has spread widely around the world, overwhelming health-care systems and killing hundreds of thousands of people. But fatigue with stay-at-home orders and the consequences of a sudden freeze in economic activity have brought diminished focus on the human cost of the disease. Even worse, impatience has reinforced a widespread misconception: that saving fewer lives will be worth it if economic activity is restored quickly. Pandemic economics doesn’t work that way, and neither can pandemic response. Only action that places people’s health at its center will enable an economic recovery.
Individuals’ perceptions of safety will drive consumer and business decisions in the coming months. If governments fail to save lives, people afraid of the virus will not resume shopping, traveling, or dining out. This will hinder economic recovery, lockdown or no lockdown. Accordingly, only investing in strategies that protect health will allow the economy to rebound; holding back on such spending will mean more outbreaks, more lives lost, and protracted economic suffering.
In the United States, consumer spending—the biggest driver of economic growth—fell even before most states mandated lockdowns, and it is nowhere near normal even in partially reopened states. Sweden’s lighter approach to a lockdown has not prevented its economy from shrinking and appears to be associated with higher death rates. China’s recovery will depend on revived domestic and global demand. Countries and states that have reopened before meeting the threshold of consistent declines in infections risk new outbreaks, higher death rates, and prolonged economic disruption.
Public finance tradeoffs typically involve competing priorities and limited resources—guns or butter, hospitals or highways. But it would be a mistake to apply that framework to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, because governments face a fundamentally different choice. Saving lives is instrumental to restoring economic activity, not opposed to it.
</snip>
By Rajeev Cherukupalli and Tom Frieden
May 13, 2020
The novel coronavirus has spread widely around the world, overwhelming health-care systems and killing hundreds of thousands of people. But fatigue with stay-at-home orders and the consequences of a sudden freeze in economic activity have brought diminished focus on the human cost of the disease. Even worse, impatience has reinforced a widespread misconception: that saving fewer lives will be worth it if economic activity is restored quickly. Pandemic economics doesn’t work that way, and neither can pandemic response. Only action that places people’s health at its center will enable an economic recovery.
Individuals’ perceptions of safety will drive consumer and business decisions in the coming months. If governments fail to save lives, people afraid of the virus will not resume shopping, traveling, or dining out. This will hinder economic recovery, lockdown or no lockdown. Accordingly, only investing in strategies that protect health will allow the economy to rebound; holding back on such spending will mean more outbreaks, more lives lost, and protracted economic suffering.
In the United States, consumer spending—the biggest driver of economic growth—fell even before most states mandated lockdowns, and it is nowhere near normal even in partially reopened states. Sweden’s lighter approach to a lockdown has not prevented its economy from shrinking and appears to be associated with higher death rates. China’s recovery will depend on revived domestic and global demand. Countries and states that have reopened before meeting the threshold of consistent declines in infections risk new outbreaks, higher death rates, and prolonged economic disruption.
Public finance tradeoffs typically involve competing priorities and limited resources—guns or butter, hospitals or highways. But it would be a mistake to apply that framework to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, because governments face a fundamentally different choice. Saving lives is instrumental to restoring economic activity, not opposed to it.
</snip>