Photo by Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius
Photo by Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius
The research team at Pandemic ~ Data Analysis (PANDA) has told the government to act with urgency and end Level 4 immediately. The group – who made headlines last week when they estimated that lockdown measures could cause “30 times more deaths than coronavirus itself” – now have stark economic data to hand.
They are now predicting that a massive 15% of GDP could be wiped off of South Africa’s economic value, and predict job losses into the millions. Their “years of lives lost” indicator, which estimates the decrease in life expectancy, suggests that 14 million years will be lost across the whole population as a result of lockdown’s knock-on effects. The rest of their predictions aren’t an easy read, either:
PANDA co-ordinator, Nick Hudson, says that the economic risk of staying at Level 4 of lockdown remains “too high”. The actuary and his team have stressed the need for government to enter Level 3 “immediately”:
“Yes, employment can’t be at the expense of people’s health. PANDA will continue to engage the government during this transition period, and adjust our models accordingly as we receive feedback and new data. The proposed two-week wait before going to Level 3 is far too long considering the current economic risk.”
“As SA looks toward shifting its lockdown from Level 4 to Level 3 and beyond in future, it is becoming increasingly clear that the decisions ahead have to account for both lives and livelihoods. It is not a trade-off, but we must keep trading or we will not have a viable economy with which to enter a post-COVID-19 world.”
Nick Hudson