Giving Compass' Take:

• Olga Yakusheva, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing and School of Public Health, discusses the cost of lives from uncurbed COVID-19 compared to maintaining economic restrictions and social distancing measures. 

• How can science and health experts help inform donors on directing charitable giving efforts during this time?

• Read more about global health and economic well-being during COVID-19. 

The debate over the coronavirus economic shutdown splits largely along partisan lines, with conservatives arguing the emotional stress of recession outweighs the lives saved, while liberals say it’s necessary to protect the most vulnerable citizens.

Here, economist Olga Yakusheva, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing and School of Public Health, discusses the working paper on the topic:

Your working paper, “The Cure is Not Worse than the Disease: A Humanitarian Perspective,” projects that social distancing and economic restrictions will save many more lives than the potential lives lost from the economic downturn. Are social distancing and the resulting economic recession worth it?

It certainly appears so. When you look at the lives the public health measures saved, it could be 500,000 to 2.7 million. This is what virologists—scientists who study the capacity of this new virus to infect and kill people—predict would happen if the virus is allowed to roam free in our communities. This is a new virus and our immune systems are scrambling to figure out how to fight it. And now, it appears people who survived COVID-19 once can get it again. COVID-19 is not your regular cold or flu. If it seems like it is when you look outside, it’s because the public health measures are working.

The economy is definitely suffering. We are now in what could be the worst recession since the Great Depression. Many people lost jobs, incomes, and health insurance.

Nevertheless, epidemiological and economic research tell us that this collateral mortality from social distancing and economic downturn will be smaller—between 50,400 and 323,000 deaths over the next few years—than the death toll from an unmitigated COVID-19 pandemic. This is an incredibly difficult tradeoff, but the public health approach does appear to have been in the best interests of our society.

Read the full article about uncurbed COVID-19 deaths by Laura Bailey at Futurity.