The Economics of COVID-19 Prevention

Ryan BourneMy new book,Economics In One Virus,uses the pandemic to highlight a range of economic principles and ideas. But there has been plenty of interesting newappliedeconomics on the pandemic since its publication. The latest isa fascinating paper by the University of Chicago ’s Casey Mulligan on the economics of COVID-19 mitigation in the workplace.Basic epidemiology suggests the risk of getting infected with COVID-19 was much higher in workplaces or other crowded gatherings than staying home, right? Well, not necessarily, at least on a per ‐​hour basis. The risk balance is also affected by prevention measures taken at each venue and these are often far more significant at work than at home.A pandemic brings new costs to workplaces: infection costs from the virus and then the prevention costs of any mitigation efforts, whether that be resources spent on screens, tests, and masks, or new inefficiencies introduced by desk spacing or new screening activities. Workplaces then will tend to invest in prevention measures only if the benefits of reduced infection costs exceed those costs of prevention.We should expect economies of scale in delivering prevention though. Bigger organizations are likely better placed to spread the costs of monitoring compliance, gathering data, or purchasing certain equipment over larger numbers of employees. Of course, for very large gatherings of people we would probably eventually see diseconomies of scale too: concert venue...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs