Health and economic costs of early and delayed suppression and the unmitigated spread of COVID-19: The case of Australia

Tom Kompas*, R. Quentin Grafton, Tuong Nhu Che, Long Chu, James Camac

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    21 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We compare the health and economic costs of early and delayed mandated suppression and the unmitigated spread of 'first-wave' COVID-19 infections in Australia in 2020. Using a fit-for-purpose SIQRM-compartment model for susceptible, infected, quarantined, recovered and mortalities on active cases, that we fitted from recorded data, a value of a statistical life year (VSLY) and an age-adjusted value of statistical life (A-VSL), we find that the economic costs of unmitigated suppression are multiples more than for early mandated suppression. We also find that using an equivalent VSLY welfare loss from fatalities to estimated GDP losses, drawn from survey data and our own estimates of the impact of suppression measures on the economy, means that for early suppression not to be the preferred strategy requires that Australia would have to incur more than 12,500-30,000 deaths, depending on the fatality rate with unmitigated spread, to the economy costs of early mandated suppression. We also find that early rather than delayed mandated suppression imposes much lower economy and health costs and conclude that in high-income countries, like Australia, a 'go early, go hard' strategy to suppress COVID-19 results in the lowest estimated public health and economy costs.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere0252400
    JournalPLoS ONE
    Volume16
    Issue number6 June
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Health and economic costs of early and delayed suppression and the unmitigated spread of COVID-19: The case of Australia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this