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Economics in the Time of COVID-

SARS, the disease depicted in the chart, was rather deadly but not very infectious –
very unlike the seasonal flu, which is highly infectious but not very deadly. In the
US, for example, the CDC reports that during the ongoing flu season (October 2019 –
present), over 30 million people have fallen ill from the seasonal flu with over 300,
hospitalisations. But given the low mortality rate (less than one in a thousand), few have
died (the estimate is 18,000 to 46,000 deaths).^10

Figure 1a SARS: Example of a typical evolution on new cases (epidemiologic curve)

Probable case s of SARS by date of onset worldwide,

1 F ebruary – 7 April 2003

1-Feb-03 8-Feb-03 15-Feb-0322-Feb-03 1-Mar-03 8-Mar-03 15-Mar-0322-Mar-0329-Mar-03 5-Apr-

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Number of cases

Source: WHO.int (https://www.who.int/csr/sarsepicurve/2003_04_08/en/index1.html)

COVID-19, it seems, is in between SARS and the flu on both dimensions; preliminary
medical studies find that COVID-19 is “less deadly but more transmissible than
SARS”.^11 The epidemiologic curve as of 5 March 2020 for the world is shown in Figure
1b. Here we see a clear twin peak pattern caused by the virus’ international spread.
Figure 1c zooms in on the non-China cases, where it is clear that the rest of the world
is in an accelerating phase.

10 See https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm.
11 See http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate