10/04/2020
The Blockchain Hub is not just about knowing and understanding Blockchain concepts. We also apply our lateral thinking and entrepreneurial perspectives to the current issue of the day. Given this, here is a short article on:
Covid-19 contagion and strategies in the context of macroeconomics (a non-blockchain perspective)
Let’s start by making some assertions based upon what we know, specifically with regards to Covid-19:
- It is highly contagious with an R0 value between 2-4
- It is not overly deadly at a death rate in a functional healthcare system of 1-3%
- The main risk is overwhelming healthcare systems through failure of containing the R0 rate. This has a flow in effect to increase the death rate up to 10+%
- Full quarantine drastically impacts the R0
- Not all people are affected equally by Covid-19
In regards macro-economics:
- A full quarantine impacts the velocity of money completely
- Businesses that have no revenue, cannot keep employees
- Over time business that have no revenue also cannot keep paying rent
- Mortgages go into default because landlords cannot support repayments
- Banks give ‘holidays' and loans that only put more pressure on the overall system
- Everyone reaches a hand to the government for support and the only tool is money creation
The question of this article is after an initial quarantine period, what is the best way forward for humanity?
We can safely say that quarantine or not Covid-19 is not going away. Even if entire counties lockdown such as Italy, Spain and now most of the world, we solve the R0 problem, healthcare systems stay intact, however, we destroy economies and we still will not eradicate this virus.
When countries slowly emerge from quarantine in one, two or six months, it is highly unlikely that 100% of the virus will be gone. Given this, the same issue will repeat. What is needed in the next 2-6 months are strategies to re-start economies whilst at the same time control the R0 of the virus and protect healthcare systems.
Premise:
Covid-19 is here to stay. So we must control the spread or develop society immunity to the point where the spread is not an issue to our global healthcare systems while also trying to maintain as much 'normal' economic activity as possible.
Solutions:
Learning from history there have been many solutions for issues such as this that have been deployed. Some with success, others a dismal failure.
1. Early days of Leprosy
In the early days, those who contracted Leprosy were segregated from those who did not. In fact, in many instances, they were sent to remote islands and left to fight, starve and survive. We can clearly say that segregation in this way is not an option.
2. Hawaii’s Gridlock Solution
There was a time when Hawaii’s traffic became overwhelming to the public infrastructure. Similar to how the healthcare system is being overwhelmed by new virus patients. How Hawaii mitigated their issue was implementing staggered work hours for schools, businesses and banks. By doing this fewer people were on the road at any given time. This strategy has been used by many town and country planners world over and is very successful.
How this could be applied to Covid-19 in the short and mid-term
Short term:
For the current situation, how could we stagger those needing hospital services to not overload and overwhelm NSO’s. Perhaps there could be ridged symptom checking and categorization whereby low symptomatic patients and low-risk patients are taken to a makeshift facility with low ratios of Drs and nurses to manage. For the most part, these facilities would be self-managed.
Mid and long term:
The key is controlling the R0 value as above. It is unlikely for any economy not to collapse entirely unless we all are able to resume normal work, within the next 3 months. Given this perhaps there is a rolling quarantine system in place for certain market segments (similar to how Hawaii managed its traffic). The goal is to allow the virus to spread while containing then R0 value at a rate that NSO’s can handle. When the R0 goes over a certain threshold, everyone stops, then resumes again on the rolling basis. It seems that China is already using part of this strategy opening cinemas early April only to shut them again 2 days later
Aggressive and out of the box ideas
A greater good methodology and approach
We know older people and also those with pre-existing conditions are highly susceptible to this virus. In fact, young people are statistically in a much better position.
Similarly to the principle of why we immunize, countries could apply the same principle for the following strategy.
People who are over 40 must self isolate or group isolate, for up to 3-6 months. Highly ridged rules would apply
On a rolling basis, of no more than XX number at a time (depending on carrying capacity of healthcare and school facilities) capable young people aged 16-40 must check in at a local school or quarantine area (excluding those with specific health conditions)
Over the next 3-6 months systematically all young people try to be infected, build the immunity and re-enter society adding to the pool who can work and is immune.
Over time, the R0 will be controlled to the point where all people can rejoin the workforce and new cases like the flu are managed in the healthcare system.
A scenario like the above is essentially the same as a ‘call to war’ scenario like many young people faced in the 1st and 2nd world wars. There will be a small % of the young people who will not make it through, however, they will have dedicated treatment of the highest standards, as opposed to the situation we have now whereby they may have totally inadequate support and end up in a much worse situation than a controlled rollout and response.
The above idea is a hard pill to swallow and may not be a correct course of action. But regaining normality to the world in the shortest amount of time is KEY. Allowing this virus to ravage us and break our health, financial and potentially political systems is not an option.
The above ideas are all hypothetical and based upon actions that have been done in history before. There is no real right or wrong, but our actions as nations will have rolling impacts for decades to come.
