The Economics of Swine Flu

Historically, a lot of epidemics have followed a pattern. Swine flu (H1N1 virus) is no different:

• There is the initial period of sporadic reports which Governments worldwide put under a watch and hope it to be a small passing phase.
• Once the epidemic is confirmed, the Governments spends try to match the growth of the epidemic. During this middle stage the epidemic growth usually out-paces Government spends. The shorter goal many times is to reduce the impact and contain the growth.
• Inter-reliance of global economies and a lot of travel ensures the impact is not limited to a smaller part of the world. Hence the challenge is also to coordinate activities across countries. Till the Governments realize the impact and work together, the growth is hard to contain.
• Slowly spend catches up and over-takes illness. This is the stage when televisions, radios and newspapers broadcast messages about the epidemic. This is the stage when every second person could stand up and speak on the epidemic for a good 15 minutes. Education is at its penetrable best.
• The end is near. It is now all about curing the reported cases and reducing recurrences. Happens fairly rapidly and a good signal is the reduced cover by the media.

Outcome?

• A lot of money is spent
• A few fatalities and agonizing emergencies
• Reduced travel across the world with a fear of infection… ergo… reduced business
• Infrastructure tested

Question!

If the governments spend a lot of money at stage 1, would the net loss be less? May be such spends would many times chase non-epidemics; but then if the spends are effective it would be even more difficult to see as many epidemics. For sure such spends would control loss of life and avoid many of the above Outcomes.

Good news at least that every epidemic has a shelf life and H1N1 is no different. We have seen it plateau and is probably reducing fast. Doesn’t hurt however to ask your friendly doctor or go to an on-line site to check out your questions. I find www.simplyanswer.com to be good resource for my daily small questions… I just ask the doctor.