Even when not saving the economy leads to people dying?
Not sure if this is free to read, but it offers some of the reasoning behind the difficulty of shutting down the economy in poorer countries: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus...
Short quote: "The worry, as Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister says, is that “if we shut down the cities...we will save [people] from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger.“"
According to this paper[1] public health interventions temporarily depress the economy but it quickly bounces back. OTOH widespread death due to choosing not to intervene depresses the economy for much longer.
Many political leaders around the world seem to be downplaying the severity of this virus.
So lets consider some details:
1. Looking at past events, pandemics do kill (i.e. many tens of millions where killed by the Spanish Flu).
2. This Covid 19 also kills (i.e. high deaths tolls in Italy/Spain and rising etc).
3. Covid 19 also appears to be highly contagious (i.e. look at New York).
4. From what I have read the reason the virus kills is hospital get overrun so patients have zero treatment options (i.e. hospitals run out of ventilators, medical staff, space, drugs etc etc).
Now I suspect if Pakistan goes down the path of trying to save its economy before tying to control the virus, they are in for a world of hurt.
The problem is that people who contract COVID-19 don’t just wake up one morning and die. They tend to develop serious symptoms which, if presented at hospital, result in potentially prolonged care over a week or more involving the use of rare icu beds and (currently) rare and expensive ventilators.
If you can convince the population to take your stance “for the good of the economy!” then have the decency to also inform them not to seek treatment and therefore not overload the health care system for those who wish to live.
xenocratus|6 years ago
Not sure if this is free to read, but it offers some of the reasoning behind the difficulty of shutting down the economy in poorer countries: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/26/the-coronavirus... Short quote: "The worry, as Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister says, is that “if we shut down the cities...we will save [people] from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger.“"
bryanlarsen|6 years ago
1: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560
jussij|6 years ago
So lets consider some details:
1. Looking at past events, pandemics do kill (i.e. many tens of millions where killed by the Spanish Flu).
2. This Covid 19 also kills (i.e. high deaths tolls in Italy/Spain and rising etc).
3. Covid 19 also appears to be highly contagious (i.e. look at New York).
4. From what I have read the reason the virus kills is hospital get overrun so patients have zero treatment options (i.e. hospitals run out of ventilators, medical staff, space, drugs etc etc).
Now I suspect if Pakistan goes down the path of trying to save its economy before tying to control the virus, they are in for a world of hurt.
ipython|6 years ago
If you can convince the population to take your stance “for the good of the economy!” then have the decency to also inform them not to seek treatment and therefore not overload the health care system for those who wish to live.
woadwarrior01|6 years ago
[1]: http://archive.is/CKxPG
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