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Fighting COVID-19: Conceptual Considerations for Short-run Policy Response


In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries, including the Philippines, opted to enforce various forms of social distancing measures to curb the spread of the virus. A full month into the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or lockdown, however, Filipinos are feeling the burdens of being required to stay at home over a prolonged period, such as loss of livelihood and income and discontinued education and social activities. Hence, questions on the duration of ECQ and the manner by which it will be lifted have surfaced. This paper provides some conceptual considerations that can feed into short-term policy responses to these questions. It is necessary to link the extent of social distancing measures with the resulting decline in COVID-19 incidence and the concomitant economic and social costs. While more drastic social distancing measures result in greater decline in COVID-19 incidence, the concomitant economic and social costs are also bigger. By balancing concerns of COVID-19 incidence and economic and social costs, the extent of social distancing measure warranted can be determined. Questions on duration and manner of lifting can subsequently be tackled. Meanwhile, over the short-term when COVID-19 incidence continues to rise, thereby threatening to overwhelm the national health care system, and policymakers are back to the drawing boards, there are strategic directions that can be pursued to flatten the so-called epidemiological curve while coping with concomitant economic and social costs. These are mass testing, increasing the capacity of the national health care system, and reducing the economic and social costs of social distancing through, among others, alternative work arrangements and direct material/financial assistance.


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May 14, 2020