JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Research in the Covid-19 pandemic has put a sharp focus on the health burden, thereby largely neglecting the potential harm to life from welfare losses.

Objective:

The paper develops a model that compares the years of life lost (YLL) due to Covid-19 and the potential YLL due to the socioeconomic consequences of its containment.

Methods:

It improves on existing estimates by conceptually disentangling YLL due to Covid-19 and socioeconomic status. By reconciling the normative life table approach with socioeconomic differences in life expectancy, it accounts for the fact that people with a low socioeconomic status are hit particularly hard by the pandemic. The model also draws on estimates of socioeconomic differences in life expectancy to ascertain potential YLL due to income loss, school closures, and extreme poverty.

Results:

Results suggest that in the more likely pandemic scenarios less than a tenth of the current socioeconomic damage would have to become permanent in the future to carry a higher YLL burden than Covid-19. The model further suggests that the socioeconomic harm outweighs the disease burden due to Covid-19 more quickly in poorer and more unequal societies. Most urgently, the extraordinary rise in extreme poverty needs immediate attention. Avoiding 3 million additional cases of extreme poverty may come with a similar life tag as protecting 1 million people from dying from Covid-19.

Conclusions:

Primarily, the results illustrate the urgent need for redistributive policy interventions and global solidarity. In addition, the potentially high YLL burden from income and learning losses raise the burden of proof for the efficacy and necessity of school and business closures in the containment of the pandemic, especially where social safety nets are underdeveloped.