Economies with strict Covid measures may do better: paper
A paper by Kiwi and Australian medical researchers in a top medical journal says countries that have taken elimination approaches to the pandemic have suffered on average less economically than those which tried to suppress the disease.
The British Medical Journal article published just before Christmas was written by University of Otago public health professors Michael Baker and Nick Wilson, and Professor Tony Blakely at the University of Melbourne.
Many countries are interested in measuring the merits of lockdowns and vigorous quarantine measures against Covid-19, especially since Sweden dropped its controversial ‘‘herd immunity’’ approach.
The paper takes the view that ‘‘elimination’’ or zero community transmission is achievable for some countries and may be preferable to the traditional US and European approaches of controlling or suppressing a fast-spreading disease.
Professor Wilson said one of the perceived barriers to nations trying to eliminate Covid-19 was the belief that this might sacrifice the economy and ultimately result in more hardship and negative health effects.
‘‘Our preliminary analysis suggests that the opposite is true. Countries following an elimination strategy – notably China, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand – have suffered less economically than countries with suppression goals.’’
The analysis was based on gross domestic product or GDP projections for 2020 from the International Monetary Fund.
New Zealand’s GDP was forecast to contract by 6.1 per cent in 2020, but when considered with other countries pursuing Covid elimination (Australia, China and Taiwan), the mean was negative 2.1 per cent. By comparison, countries in North America and Europe with suppression strategies lost 7.5 per cent in mean GDP.
The paper noted the balance of benefits and costs was uncertain, ‘‘and may not be clear until after the pandemic has been fully controlled’’.
A mitigation approach to pandemics took steps to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed and to protect the vulnerable. But it also accepted community transmission was probably unstoppable.
Suppression aimed ‘‘to flatten the epidemic curve further than with mitigation’’ but still did not expect to stop the disease, the paper said. Both strategies took about 12 to 18 months before an exit plan was on the horizon, whereas the elimination strategy only took two to three months.