When looking at costs, another considerable element to factor in are the losses to the economy caused not just by mortality but by the morbidity in people who catch it i.e Long Covid. If @10% of people are taken out of economic activity for 3 months and 5% of the working age population are removed from economic activity (along with significant health costs) for more than 6 months at minimum as the data currently suggest (possibly longer) there will be a considerable long term economic burden from long term disease and ongoing healthcare, and if the infections are allowed to become widespread then critical infrastructures may become compromised due to high volumes of workforce off sick at the same time. Add to that the 'unknowns' about even longer term effects on cardiovascular and neurological health in a fairly large subset of the populations, and the health related economic costs for the longer term could get yet higher. Certainly there are many reports of people who needed ICU now requiring dialysis, with huge costs associated with this outcome and there are countless other odd but serious sequelae in survivors of serious Covid disease, all of which have economic (never mind personal) impacts.
Looking at this recent study
http://www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.20-1015, it suggests that universal mask wearing in all public spaces, indoors and outdoors, is for now the most cost effective intervention available.
Vaccines look like they may only be partially effective and may take some years to perfect, so perhaps the greater research focus for the immediate term needs to be directed towards interventions that can be made early and limit the severity and duration of disease in people to reduce the risks of needing hospital care, with resultant cost savings made to national economies and a greater justification to carry on 'life as normal'. There is a lot of associative data on e.g. Vitamin D but not yet RCTs to establish causality... but basic things like this might well be then most cost effective options moving forward, in addition to mask wearing, and may permit more of 'life as normal' to carry on. I am trying to collate the research data - positive and negative - so that we can get a clearer picture of what the research says so far, and what studies are underway that might provide more answers. What we don't have though is good economic modelling for any of these scenarios that allow governments - regional and national - to make good decisions when they are looking at economies and what may be best for the country concerned, or even the global economy. The other major short term development would be 'on the spot self testing'. Clear of infection? go to work/school/ out or whatever. Infected? Stay at home and isolate. All of these may be better options as far as balancing the needs of the economy with the health needs of populations, rather than simply letting infections run. We also dont know how common reinfections may be in the longer term, nor how serious they may be.
Then there is the big question what happens when a country comes a point where hospital care is saturated? In the US and every other country you have to question about what happens when large numbers of the population cannot get the expert or supportive care they need when they need it. There are costs for lives and working years lost from those who die, and yet greater costs that can be attributed to individuals who are harmed and unable to work for the longer term with major morbidity sequelae (all age groups are affected). Then there are costs that will come with the inevitable civil unrest that would come when large numbers of people have a loved one cannot get healthcare as there are no beds or staff - especially if its for e.g. a child suffering asthma, or a heart attack. If Covid takes up all the beds, then these patients will suffer too and there will be outrage that the expensive insurance or taxes paid are not sufficient to get care, simply because the system is overwhelmed.
For the UK lack of NHS capacity is a big problem and what is driving lockdowns, which are hugely unpopular - and a similar situation exists in other EU countries. Healthcare systems everywhere have very little slack, and some countries are worse off than others. Whilst I am not a great fan of the Daily Mail, its healthcare reporting is actually reasonable - lots of good data on the UK situation here (page down to get to graphs and keep going)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...els-predict-4-000-deaths-day-second-wave.html. The bottom line is that UK healthcare provision has been so limited that on current trajectories healthcare systems will be overwhelmed shortly, so we are locking down (we are trying to maintain non covid care in parallel this time - last time everything else stopped, so covid capacity is even less than before). Without the sort of interventions outlined above, there does not seem to be much in the way of other options.
What is the current position in the US? What would the economic and societal impacts of such a scenario be (i.e where healthcare systems in the US get overwhelmed?). I wish that the all the healthcare modellers were actually involving health economists to start looking at the factors outlined above. It might help national leadership make better decisions, faster.
Re: the original question about Financial Reports, I have not been able to find any of any merit that look holistically at all these different factors and try and estimate these costs and risks, short and long term. I am still looking. There are however many that look at impacts on individual business sectors - happy to post these, just not sure where. It would be useful if they were grouped together.
