Economics in the Time of COVID-19
Trump’s initial denial of the issue will be soon be revealed as yet another lie. Perhaps
the US health system is better equipped to deal with the epidemic than most others,
but the president will suffer badly if it emerges that his early denial has led to scores of
avoidable deaths. The Italian and South Korean governments also reacted very slowly.
Either they were not aware of what was going on or they were clueless about what to
do, they were just incompetent. In France, politicised trade unions of health workers
immediately blamed a lack of resources on the government, which is acting fast,
forcefully and transparently. Divisions will rise in an already deeply divided country.
The cruise ship moored in Yokohama has been turned into a petri dish. Amazingly, the
Japanese health authorities tested only a minority of the stranded passengers, officially
due to lack of equipment. At the same time, another cruise ship was quarantined in Hong
Kong and all passengers were promptly tested. Japan hardly qualifies as a poor country
short of technical skills, but its narrow political elite and its bureaucracy are well-
known for their bad habits, as the Fukushima disaster already revealed.
A telling contrast is Switzerland. As soon as the first two cases were identified, the
government built up testing centres and required that large events (more than 1,000
people) be cancelled. Highly expensive exhibitions, such as the Geneva auto show or
the prestigious watch show, were instantly cancelled. For a country frequently derided
for being slow in everything (except maybe downhill skiing), its speed of reaction
stands to reduce the extent of the epidemic even though its borders remain widely
open. Then look at Israel, which is turning back foreigners coming from some infected
countries when they land at the airport. They are not even allowed to disembark, while
Israeli citizens coming in from the same countries are immediately taken care of. If that
is not a fortress mentality, then what is?
Epidemiologists worry about the impact of the epidemic in poor, ill-equipped
countries. Kazakhstan and Côte d’Ivoire have built brand new capital cities, but they
lack elementary health systems, like many other countries whose armies sport advanced
weaponry. Development economists have long identified health systems as a priority
that public and private donors should focus on. They stand to be proven right, but the
proof might be cruel.
These examples, and many more that will occur in the coming weeks, should not go
unnoticed when the epidemic finally tempers down. They all will reveal what is deeply
wrong, and sometimes reassuringly good, in each country. These things mostly went
unnoticed because they have been part of the landscape for very long, just a normal
fact of life. If many lives are lost, they will be exposed for all to see. Hopefully, it will