Bryan Leyland: “Things you know that ain't so" - Covid-19

As the American humorist Will Rogers said: “It’s not what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” 

“Our government is a world leader in coping with Covid-19”

No. When collateral damage is taken into account, the social and economic cost of the shutdown is huge. Thousands of lives have been put at risk because of delayed operations, treatment, and diagnosis. Many people have suffered from depression and domestic violence. The education of our children – particularly those from deprived families – has been seriously compromised.

From the beginning, it was obvious that every effort should be made to limit the risk of infecting old and sick people. But was it necessary to shut down the economy as well?

So let us start with what we did know before the end of March:

Worldwide the vast majority of fatalities have been people in the over 70 age group who have serious underlying health problems.

Younger people are at much less risk and children under 10 frequently don’t show symptoms, hardly ever get seriously ill and none have died. They don’t appear to be a significant source of infection. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

Computer modelling in New Zealand is largely based on pessimistic assumptions – some adopted from overseas studies which have since been discredited. These models have predicted worst case scenarios of 14,000 or 60,000 deaths – take your pick.

So far 21 people have died in New Zealand – all were over 70 and all had serious underlying health problems.

It seems that none of the 84 (out of 750) pupils and staff at Marist College who were infected became seriously ill.

Already, the economic damage is huge: billions of dollars have been paid out in wage support and the like. Even more is going to be spent trying to prime the pump with government selected infrastructure projects – some of which are extremely poor value for money.

Domestic violence, poverty and depression have increased, operations, medication and diagnoses have been delayed with potentially serious outcomes and10% unemployment is predicted.

New Zealand imposed level 3 restrictions on 25th March followed by level 4 on the 27th. Before the 25th the public were social distancing and taking other precautions and most people over 70 were isolating themselves. By 27 March, there were clear signs that this was working because the infection rate was levelling. It may well have commenced to decline without the imposition of level 4.

New Zealand already had a pandemic policy based on experience with previous epidemics: it accepted that an epidemic would end only when herd immunity has been achieved. The policy concentrated on protecting the vulnerable until the epidemic had died away.

The Prime Minister ignored the existing policy and decided on the risky option of attempting to eradicate the infection. If it succeeds we will need to adopt a “fortress New Zealand” policy until a vaccine has been developed and distributed or until Covid-19 has died out worldwide. This will produce enormous economic damage and social misery for many months. If we fail and finally elect to let herd immunity build up we will finish up trailing the world.

The lockdown in New Zealand has been much stricter than in most other countries. All but businesses deemed to be essential were shut down rather than allowing any businesses that could operate safely to continue in operation. This has resulted in massive social and economic damage.

The lockdown has put thousands of people out of work and destroyed many businesses. Hospitals have stopped all elective operations and treatment and prepare for a flood of Covid-19 patients. Postponing medical care has put thousands of people at risk of continuing ill-health and an earlier death. 

Shutting down schools and early childhood education ignored the evidence that children are largely immune and do not appear to infect others. Children in struggling families suffer most.

The economic damage is enormous.  Treasury has predicted a $121 billion cumulative drop in GDP. Billions of dollars have been spent on extending the lives of, mostly, old and sick people. If we generously assume that the level 4 shutdown extended the lives of, say, 5000 people by five years then it cost $5 million per year of life saved. If it had saved only 1250 lives, the cost per life saved would have been $20 million!

Billions of dollars have been paid out in wage support and other efforts to mitigate the damage. This is likely to continue for months. It will be years before our economy recovers..

When road transport planners evaluate the cost of safety improvements in road transport they value a life at about $4 million – $50,000 per year of an assumed 80 year life. For every $1 we are prepared to spend on reducing road deaths, we spend $100 prolonging the life of people at risk from Covid-19.

Sweden, on the other hand, adopted a carefully considered approach (similar to our level 1) that aimed to keep infections down to a manageable level without inflicting major damage on the economy and society. Its success is demonstrated by a death rate not much higher than the European average. According to the models, it should be many times higher. Sweden’s GDP will drop by 0.7% while New Zealand’s GDP is predicted to drop by 13.5%. 

By 27 March, the government was – or should have been – well aware that Covid-19 was only a major threat to the old and sick and realised that the shutdown would have a disastrous effect on our economy and the lives of many people – most of them already poor. 

A rational policy would have been to protect the over 70s until the pandemic had died away. There would certainly have been a few more deaths among the old and sick but the lives of many ordinary people would have been saved, much misery would have been avoided and the economic damage would have been minimal.

Whatever happened to “The greatest good of the greatest number”?

Bryan Leyland is a Consulting Engineer with wide interests in modern technology."Things you know that ain’t so" is a column in which he exposes the truth behind popular misconceptions.