Let the Insights of Covidnomics Shape our Policy Interventions

Context: The ongoing battle against COVID and its economic fallout 

Covid related stats

• Gross domestic product: Peru and India were the two worst-performing economies in the second quarter of 2020 (April-June),  where GDP shrank by 30.2% and 23.9%, respectively
• Crude Mortality Rate (CMR): India’s CMR) is only 60 while in Peru it is 939

A case of interaction between medicine and human behaviour

• Closed space versus open areas: There is conventional wisdom that COVID is more likely to be transmitted in closed spaces (Restaurant) than in open areas (Parks).

• This claim becomes true due to Human behaviour: Because only more risk-tolerant people will go to restaurants.
• Therefore restaurant patrons are more likely to be infected because they would have been taking more risk. 

• Misconception: People will believe that the pattern (Virus spread more in closed spaces) has something to do with the nature of the virus, rather than being driven entirely by human behaviour. 
• Onus is on Human behaviour: if the authorities had announced that restaurants were safer than parks, then parks would in time have become the riskier place due to Human behaviour

Policy Interventions

• Recognise the relationship between Human behaviour and spread of disease: 

• This kind of policy intervention can contain the virus without affecting the economy. 

• Design rules of behaviour that allow the economy to function, at least partly, while containing the virus

• Use people with Sars-CoV-2 antibodies: 

• To do COVID-risky jobs: in hospitals, and in business sectors involving face-to-face interaction.

• By using them as links between vulnerable people, we can keep supply chains intact while disrupting virus transmission chains.

Conclusion

Government needs to intervene with intelligent, well-designed policies, which would enable us to keep the virus under control without bringing the economy to a halt.