Balancing economy and the value of life
Tasked with moving forwards, balancing the economy and the value of life under the weight of a global pandemic is a demanding responsibility for anyone with the role of making tough decisions.
ProACT Sam considers the ‘quality of life’ issues relating to the big political decisions of the day, together with individual decisions we will need to make both as Expats and as consumers.
As we enter what has now been many weeks of lockdown for much of the world, Expats with overseas properties, people working abroad as contractors or owners of cross-border companies continue the business of survival.
Aside from a priority to keep safe and healthy, many Expats and their families are wondering how travel and holidays to overseas homes will be impacted by future government announcements, by changes in government policy, and by the impact of consumer behaviour.
Expats working in overseas locations may find opportunities are increasingly limited, as fewer opportunities exist or projects are postponed.
How will travel costs change? Will travel become more expensive, tempering even the roving Expat?
New kid on the block: deadly opposition or no big deal?
When a football club promotes a new player from the youth team, imports an expensive overseas striker or buys a rivals’ top scorer from last season, fans hope the opposition will be killed off with a steady stream of deadly finishes.
Sometimes this pays off (Fernando Torres to Liverpool). Sometimes, it’s a flop (Fernando Torres to Chelsea). Before transferring to Liverpool, years of data relating to Fernando Torres’ effectiveness at Atletico Madrid was available. Scouts were able to measure his runs, goals, assists and strike rate at the highest level.
A new player from the youth team doesn’t have a track record. They might become a world-class striker; a Wayne Rooney or Ronaldo, immediately effective with ongoing results year on year. But for every Wayne Rooney, any football fan can list a young failure.
So it is with a new virus. It could be a deadly killer or a damp squib. The role of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is to be the global worst-case planner for approaching new diseases and to prepare guidance for governments worldwide.
Coronavirus is the new kid on the block. To date, it has proved to be a forceful virus, spreading quickly and easily and creating severe life-threatening, pneumonia-type complications.
When experts proclaim projected death rates, we are all concerned. Truth is no one knows for sure. Everything right now is based on modelled statistical analysis. But how many cold and flu seasons will it take for scientists to have detailed, reliable statistics on how this virus works, and a predicted mortality rate they can be confident of?
For the last 3 winters, the UK recorded 26,000 deaths a year due to seasonal flu. At the end of April, Coronavirus deaths exceeded 20,000 in the UK. The new virus certainly has a deadly edge.
Having locked down more than half of the world’s economy in a strategically defensive measure to protect humanity, we now have to find a way to move forwards, at every level of human life: individuals, families, teams, villages, cities, regions, countries, continents, the world.
What is the fallout from the economic lockdown? Not just on lost business, but on people’s individual behaviour? Those individuals make up the communities in which we live, work and spend time, as well as being the business minds, employees and consumers who will drive the economy.
The world must adapt and change with WWC - Coping With Corona, but the economic lockdown and time spent in it will impact on business and consumers going forward.
Change is a constant challenge in any dynamic economy. The innovation and change we can expect to be seen in the next 18 months will likely match the anticipated adoption for the next 5 years.
The challenge of balancing economy and the value of life
Falls in economic output lead to disease, death and disorder.
Health outcomes become worse during economic downturn.
Historically, whether impacted by economy, war, extreme weather or other national/international crisis, wealthier people have better predicted outcomes than poor or disadvantaged people.
When the UK’s National Health Service assesses a new drug for public use, they refer to statistics to measure effectiveness.
The body responsible for this assessment in the UK is ‘NICE’ (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). An important part of assessment is to consider the cost of the drug to purchase and how much life is extended or improved for the patient.
A £10,000 a week medication which extends life expectancy for 3 months would not score highly. That drug is unlikely to be made available through the NHS. For any group of patients suffering with a condition or disease, NICE assesses new drugs and puts a ‘value of life’ on each of those patients.
These medications go through years of trials and testing before being assessed and rejected/released. No such drug is available for Coronavirus. The only treatment for this new virus is great nursing and medical care by doctors using their skills and equipment to keep the body alive and assist a sufferer’s own immune system to fight off the disease.
The Coronavirus needs extra special healthcare treatment. There is no medication to fight the disease and a vaccine is needed to prevent viral infection, which we don’t have for Coronavirus at this stage.
The next step to protect lives was to implement the lockdown, which means an economic lockdown too. If the statisticians projected 30% population reduction due to the virus, then that meant critical, previously unthinkable action was required. The serious financial cost of the economic lockdown is deemed by our societies to be the ‘value of life’ for all those who might otherwise have died.
Conversely, an ongoing economic lockdown means there is an associated ‘value of life’ for every potential death caused by the lockdown itself.
Consequences
Politicians must make a decision on how and when to get out of the situation we are in.
As long as the economic lockdown is maintained without rising deaths, the value of life for those suffering or potentially suffering from Coronavirus is effectively being valued as higher than other potential deaths and negative consequences of the lockdown.
Cancer-screening checks and follow up appointments are being postponed and delayed, as are non-urgent treatments which could lead to deterioration of health. People who avoid checking out a health condition because of the Coronavirus lockdown, could reduce their life expectancy.
The economic lockdown will lead to a recession in the economy. The greater the fall in economic activity, the greater the loss of income, jobs and businesses and this will make us poorer.
The health of families, teams and communities will be impacted by this.
Chaotic events which appear to be unconnected to the lockdown (but which are in reality, related) can lead to sickness, upset and in some cases, death. Take the driver who kills himself and others because he falls asleep at the wheel through tiredness, fatigue or sickness caused by financial worry and stress.
A shattered economy could lead to economic hardship. Economic hardship will subsequently lead to a rise in deaths, with complications causing premature death from heart problems, cancers or other medical or age-related conditions.
Whether we like it or not, the fact is that at the present time, the life of those who would be impacted by an extended economic lockdown and their deaths is being deemed less valuable that the value of a Coronavirus victim’s life.
Balance on bias
Every human learns a set of values in life that anchor them to a set of beliefs. Because of these beliefs, behavioural/cultural bias is seen throughout human societies.
Which football team you follow, which foods you eat, how you exercise, who you vote for is reflected in an individual’s behaviour.
Politicians take decisions based upon the advisers they consult.
Advisers will each have their own biases, reflected in the recommendations and opinions they give. Remember we don’t have years of scientific scrutiny and credible evidence to assess the true effects of the Coronavirus. Every current expert opinion is a projection and a best guess. No matter how reasoned, there will always be an element of individual bias.
This is why we can observe different governments reacting differently, their decisions deriving from alternative interpretations, projections and best guesses.
In full lockdown, politicians must consult with a dynamic group of advisers, avoiding a narrow group of experts so that as wide range of opinions and bias as possible is presented. This allows politicians to make the best decision for their country’s populations.
Like in a wartime situation, politicians now have to make life or death decisions in the battle against Coronavirus.
They will have to make judgements that will lead to either deaths by this virus, or deaths as a result of everything else.
The Business of Survival
Businesses too will have to battle with the behavioural bias of consumers after the economic lockdown. Society and its people will change.
With 3 months of lockdown, people could develop newly conditioned behaviours and move from old ways. For example, the adoption of technology to do business online, by phone, by video conference. Business teams connected by technology and the internet of things, not by the office they work from.
Consumers as a consequence of their own experience of WWC, may become conditioned to new needs and habits. Routine shopping online with delivery could become a norm. Social dinners could be served at home with takeaway food delivered, or by drop-in chefs and personal waiting staff.
The business of survival will involve necessary change for businesses, in the product or service they offer and in the way they deliver that product or service.
This could be a stripped-down delivery service, or a tailored upmarket personalised service.
Restaurants will need to space people out and provide better hygiene. We might even find that businesses actually focus on providing high quality, clean toilet facilities with hygiene at the centre!
Airlines might start cleaning their aircraft between trips and improving ways to keep their bathroom facilities clean.
Service businesses will have to provide space to allow for social distancing and appropriate hygiene measures for visitors and staff.
The behavioural balance of business, employees and consumers will all change based upon individual, communal and country bias applied.
It is an exciting new world of opportunity filled with the challenge of change for Expat business that intend to practice the business of survival (and subsequent growth) in the new world.
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