Abstract
With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, aggressive countermeasures have been taken, including the implementation of the unprecedented lockdown of the city, which will necessarily cause huge economic losses for the city of Wuhan. In this paper, we attempt to uncover the interactions between epidemic prevention and control measures and economic-social development by estimating the health loss and meso-economic loss from a human-oriented perspective. We implemented a compartmental model for the transmission dynamics and health burden assessment to evaluate the health losses, then estimated the direct and indirect economic losses of industries using the Input-Output model. Based on these estimates, the first monthly health losses and meso-economic losses caused by the lockdown was assessed. The overall policy effect of the lockdown policy in Wuhan was also investigated. The health loss and meso-economic losses are used to evaluate the health burden and loss of residents’ mental health, the direct economic loss of several worst-hit industries, and the indirect economic loss of all industries, respectively. Our findings reveal that the health burden caused by this pandemic is estimated to be 4.4899 billion yuan (CNY), and the loss of residents’ mental health is evaluated to be 114.545 billion yuan, the direct economic losses in transport, logistics, and warehousing, postal service, food, and beverage service industries reach 21.6094 billion yuan, and the monthly indirect economic losses of all industries are 36.39661994 billion yuan caused by the lockdown. The total monthly economic losses during the lockdown reach 177.0413 billion yuan. However, the lockdown policy has been considered to reduce COVID-19 infections by >180 thousand, which saves about 20 thousand lives, as well as nearly 30 billion yuan on medical costs. Therefore, the lockdown policy in Wuhan has obvious long-term benefits on the society and the total economic losses will be at a controllable level if effective measures are taken to combat COVID-19.
Highlights
The COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 and it rapidly spread to all provinces in China and other countries in the world, and it became a global pandemic as claimed by World Health Organization (WHO)
We use three types of data: the first is the reported cases of different health endpoints to assess the health burden, the second is related to business data of transport, logistics and warehousing, postal service, accommodation, food, and beverage service industries to assess the meso-economic losses of industries, and the last is the supporting data to evaluate the health losses and the meso-economic losses
The estimations reveal that the assessment of health burden is 4.4899 billion yuan, the loss of residents’ mental health is estimated to be approximately 114.545 billion yuan, and the monthly direct economic losses of transport, logistics, and warehousing, postal service, accommodation, food, and beverage service industries are about 21.60939 billion yuan, and the monthly indirect economic losses of all industries are 36.39661994 billion yuan caused by the lockdown
Summary
The COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 and it rapidly spread to all provinces in China and other countries in the world, and it became a global pandemic as claimed by WHO. The economic impacts and losses caused by the lockdown must be evaluated scientifically, which is of unique and referential significance to the prevention and control of outbreaks of major emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19. The current studies of COVID-19 focus on two folds, one is to understand the transmission mechanisms for prevention and control, and the other is the assessment of economic losses and public health burden due to the endemic of COVID-19 (Phillips 2003; Kaufmann et al 1997; Xu et al 2020). We will study the impact of fighting the virus on the city during the first month of the lockdown from January 23 to February 23, 2020, to evaluate the economic losses from the health and the meso-economic perspectives (Agüero and Beleche 2017). The health losses are estimated using the physical and mental health losses from the infection of the COVID-19, and the meso-economic losses emphasize on the direct and indirect economic losses of industries because of the lockdown (KeoghBrown and Smith 2008)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
