Lives versus Livelihoods during the COVID-19 Pandemic
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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The early COVID-19 pandemic literature
focused on the conflict between lives and livelihoods. But
cross-country evidence reveals that across countries high
mortality rates were often associated with large gross
domestic product contractions. This paper shows that the
presumed trade-off was associated with lockdowns as the
primary instrument of containment. Early transition from
lockdowns to testing-tracing-isolation-based containment
softened the trade-off within countries and explains the
absence of a trade-off across countries. The analysis finds
that testing had positive indirect effects on growth and
perhaps even positive direct effects. By allowing countries
to relax shutdowns without compromising on containment,
testing could have indirectly contributed to about a 0.6
percentage point boost in growth. By infusing greater
confidence in people to step out and engage in economic
activity, testing could have added another 0.6 percentage
point to growth. As the world struggles to scale up
vaccination in the face of new waves and variants, continued
emphasis on testing could help limit infection without
recourse to costly lockdowns.
Palabras clave
CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, PANDEMIC IMPACT, LOCKDOWN, TESTING, LIVELIHOODS, INCOME LOSS, FATALITY RATE