Global mortality benefits of COVID-19 action

Sunbin Yoo; Shunsuke Managi

doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120231

Global mortality benefits of COVID-19 action

Technol Forecast Soc Change. 2020 Nov:160:120231. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120231. Epub 2020 Jul 27.

Authors

Sunbin Yoo¹, Shunsuke Managi¹

Affiliation

¹ Urban Institute & School of Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan.

Abstract

The rapid spread of COVID-19 motivated countries worldwide to mitigate mortality through actions including social distancing, home quarantine, school closures, and case isolation. We estimate the global mortality benefits of these actions. We use county-level data on COVID-19 from January 2020, project the number of mortalities until September 2020, and calculate the global mortality benefits using the age- and country-specific value of a statistical life (VSL). Implementing all four types of actions above would save approximately 40.76 trillion USD globally, with social distancing accounting for 55% of the benefits. The monetary benefit would be the largest in the US, Japan and China. Our findings indicate that global actions during COVID-19 have substantial economic benefits and must be implemented in response to COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Epidemic diseases; Global mortality benefit; Value of a statistical life.