Lessons from the “Spanish Flu” for the Coronavirus’s Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity

That is the subtitle of a new paper by Robert J. Barro, José F. Ursúa,  and Joanna Weng, here is the abstract:

Mortality and economic contraction during the 1918-1920 Great Influenza Pandemic provide plausible upper bounds for outcomes under the coronavirus (COVID-19). Data for 43 countries imply flu-related deaths in 1918-1920 of 39 million, 2.0 percent of world population, implying 150 million deaths when applied to current population. Regressions with annual information on flu deaths 1918-1920 and war deaths during WWI imply flu-generated economic declines for GDP and consumption in the typical country of 6 and 8 percent, respectively. There is also some evidence that higher flu death rates decreased realized real returns on stocks and, especially, on short-term government bills.

I wonder if the economic cost isn’t higher today because we know more about how to limit pandemic spread and we also value human lives more, relative to economic output?

Kudos to the authors for such swift work.

Also from NBER here is Andrew Atkeson on the dynamics of disease progression, depending on the percentage of the population with the disease.  Here is an excerpt from the paper:

Even under severe social distancing scenarios, it is likely that the health system will be overwhelmed, which is indicated to happen when the portion of the U.S. population actively infected and suffering from the disease reaches 1% (about 3.3 million current cases).7 More severe mitigation efforts do push the date at which this happens back from 6 months from now to 12 months from now or more, perhaps allowing time to invest heavily in the resources needed to care for the sick. It is clear that to avoid a health care catastrophe as is currently being experienced in Italy, prolonged severe social distancing measures will need to be combined with a massive investment in health care capacity.

Under almost all of the scenarios considered, at the peak of the disease progression, between 10% and 20% of the population (33 – 66 million people) suffers from an active infection at the same time.

A not entirely cheery prognosis.

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