Agree. The scary thing here is that we're talking about completely pausing the world economy for one quarter? Or two quarters? Or a year? There's really no way of knowing what the effects will be and the longer this gets stretched the more drastic the economic effects will be. I don't know what perspective your comment comes from but I think it's important to open a discussion on the long term effects of this type of quarantine. For example, if this leads to an unprecedented level of recession it's very possible that more people end up dead due to the quarantine.
You actually can't assume that will be the case, based on longevity data from the Great Depression[1]. If Covid runs rampant and collapses the medical system the U.S. is facing anywhere between 500,000 to 10 million dead based on current understanding of the numbers[2].
Thousands/millions out of work may (or may not) experience morbid effects. They will have a harder time participating in the buy side of the economy and driving demand, and also represent missing productivity. That's nothing to sneeze at.
But thousands/millions dead are guaranteed morbid effects. And dead people are even harder to get back into the demand side of the economy (or productivity) than jobless people.
Also near the peak of an unconstrained pandemic... what should we think people's improvised reactions will look like? Business as usual, no economic impact?
The best way to not have an economic impact was not to have an uncontained epidemic we weren't prepared for. We kinda missed that step. Why would we have a choice not to have serious economic impacts at this point?
The scary thing is that many of the deaths are more or less guaranteed even if we try to treat them, until the point a cure or vaccine is developed.
>Why would we have a choice not to have serious economic impacts at this point?
That's not really a choice at this point, but we do have two paths with unknown outcomes. We can choose to focus on limiting the spread at all costs (and hitting the economy harder) or we can focus on limiting the economic effects but give up on containing the virus. Neither is a good choice in any capacity, but it could turn out that either one minimizes death in the long-term.
Sure, I'm not asserting that the economic effects will lead to more deaths. I think this is something that needs to be researched and discussed publicly though, because it's really not something we have a good answer to. I imagine that whatever the final outcome of this situation is will directly determine our responses to future threats of disease.
In terms of the first article, it seems to only analyze the effects on longevity in the short-term, whereas I think most of the effects observed as a result of recessions take a few decades to really show up. No idea if that's really the case though.
I agree. The thing about economic deaths is they are silent and nebulous. See the opioid crisis as an example, or crime rates in areas with poverty and economic uncertainty. Or look at illnesses in impoverished regions, such as obesity and diabetes. Look at unemployed people without access to healthcare. Even suicides jumped after 2008. [1]
