JOHANNESBURG, 8 May 2020: In a developing country like South Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic is both a healthcare and a humanitarian crisis but it is also one in which the economy should not be forsaken, says a new group presenting data on economic costs of the crisis.

Pandemics – Data & Analytics (Panda), a newly established multidisciplinary group, this week released a 23-page report detailing the abiding impacts handcuffing the economy would have on both the economy and on future mortality rates resulting from an extended lockdown and the expected associated economic downturn. 

Lockdowns are a subset of social distancing measures that aim to “flatten the curve”, so that preparatory measures can be taken and the rate at which hospital cases enter the health system can be kept manageable. Provided that this rate is managed, flattening the curve in an epidemiological model does not change the number of viral deaths it predicts—it merely spreads them over time. Curve-flattening only saves lives to the extent that we avoid having some treatable cases of COVID-19 and other afflictions end in death

As the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the disease continues, they argue it is increasingly obvious the economic impacts of an extended lockdown are extreme and threaten the lives and livelihoods of many South Africans. 

“Our latest estimate is that South Africa’s lockdown will cause a loss of life at least 29 times greater than the loss of life it stands to prevent”, said Nick Hudson, Panda’s coordinator. 

“It would be no exaggeration to say that each week of continuing lockdown will, in the long run, result in more loss of life than the virus itself. In the face of this, we advise the economically restrictive lockdown measures should be discontinued immediately in favour of more strategic tactics that protect the economy and lives.”

Panda, a collective of leading actuaries, economists, mathematicians, medical professionals and businesspeople, says the long-term costs are more dire than the immediate threat posed by the coronavirus. 

It quantifies this in terms of “years of lost life”, an analysis that calculates the number of years of life lost when someone dies due to an incident, compared with that person’s remaining life expectancy at the point of death. 

This figure can be measured across a population to estimate the aggregate years of life lost (YLL) to an impact. 

Panda ran two sets of numbers. The first focuses on understanding what the reduction in life expectancy would be as a direct result of people contracting COVID-19.  

The outcome is compared to a second set of numbers which takes into account the reduction of life expectancy as a result of the economic damage and/or hardships caused by the lockdown.  

The report finds the impact to be profound, damaging, and lasting. “We estimate years of life lost owing to economic contraction caused by lockdown to lie in the range of 14 million to 34 million years lost,” Hudson added. 

“In contrast, we estimate the years of life lost to avoidable overburdening of health resources to lie in the range of 26,800 to 473,500.”

The South African GDP could shrink between 10 and 15% if the current lockdown strategy is maintained. The massive job and revenue losses would drive more people into poverty and create a decline in employment of around 2.5 to 3.3 million.

“Our analysis is not intended to be a judgement or indictment on what has come before us. Six weeks ago, data was sparse and concerning. A rapid lockdown was a prudent decision at the time,” said Hudson. “Yet we should not anchor ourselves to the lockdown, but rather consider the best next action, taking into account the new and developing data available today.”

Panda argues that it is time to take the wider economic impact into account and base it on analysis and data that objectively takes the real impact on productive lives, and thus the economy, into account. 

“The consequences of the continued lockdown should be measured against the economic costs and second order impact. Many people are quantifying the current spread of the virus, but not the impact of a longer-term humanitarian disaster. The current response to COVID-19 is exhausting the engine of our economy so fast that, by the time the statistics emerge to quantify its full extent, it may be too late to stop it” said Hudson. 

“Had the prospect that coronavirus could kill tens of millions of people been increasingly confirmed, lockdowns may have been justified. That possibility no longer exists. There is no evidence indicating this to be the case. The humanitarian crisis provoked by lockdown however is a matter of sheer certainty, threatening to rip through the very fabric of our society. At this point, continuing lockdown in a country such as ours—in any form whatsoever, and whether “risk-based” or not—is indefensible.”

Panda has shared the report widely with government and business in the hope that their data will inform decision-making in the highest offices and offset the potential humanitarian crisis.