Thread by @BjornLomborg

Even moderate lockdowns likely a terrible idea for poorer nations

We did a study with Malawi's National Planning Commission:

Lockdown avoids about 7,000 deaths but costs $12 billion

$3 million can avoid more deaths in Malawi (4,000 times cheaper)

npc.mw/docs/NPC%20COV…

Imperial College finds that moderate social distancing reduces COVID death by about 12,000. We also expect less traffic deaths and less additional HIV death. Lockdown will also cause more malnutrition, tuberculosis and malaria, leading to a net benefit of 6,700 avoided deaths

The costs are: 1) shut down schools which leads to long-term lower child productivity. Since each extra school year increases wages by 12%, school lockdown cost is $5.2 billion (almost one year GDP) — the present value of income loss for 6 million children over the next
50 years

2) Economic cost in GDP. Doing nothing will still see lower productivity, but a moderate lockdown will reduce GDP even more. In total, the cost is estimated at $6.7 billion (again, almost one year of GDP).

In total, each dollar spent on moderate corona policies will generate 4¢ of benefits

When people say "we should save all lives" that may be somewhat true in rich countries

But in Malawi, 22,000 die each year from HIV, and almost all could be saved

$3 million can save 12,000 people (equal to *all* the people saved from corona) through nutrition for HIV infected

Spending $3 million to save *more* people, is better than spending $12 billion and saving fewer

Because moderate social distancing mostly save older people but cause more deaths in younger people, in total we estimate corona policies will cause *more* life years lost

Malawi should continue a series of sensible low-cost social distancing measures like cocooning the elderly, no large gatherings and handwashing. It should keep health services for eg tuberculosis, malaria and vaccinations running. It should provide masks for health personnel.

But crucially, Malawi — and likely many developing nations — should not shut down its schools or economy to tackle corona, because the damages will vastly outweigh the benefits.

Malawi is one of the world's poorest countries ($400/person GDP)

But we find a similar impact for the much richer African country of Ghana ($1,700/person). Analysis co-written with the head of the National Development Planning Commission

Even moderate lockdowns likely a terrible idea for poorer nations

For Ghana, we find that a lockdown will save about 16,000 deaths but cost $50 billion.

$9 million spent on smart TB policies could avoid more deaths in Ghana (5,000 times cheaper)

copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/gh…