Det anerkendte tyske økonomiske institut Ifo har udarbejdet en No-Covid-strategi, der stort set kan undgå en økonomisk lockdown. Det er en strategi, som Tyskland slet ikke bruger og heller ikke i den nyeste lockdown. Strategien går ud på at skelne skarpt mellem zoner med høje og lave infektionstal, at teste og spore alle, der er potentielt smittede, at isolere alle smittede og at koncentrere sig om lokal håndtering af coronaen. Coronabekæmpelsen og den økonomiske udvikling kan gå hånd i hånd, skriver Ifo. Problemet er, at en effektiv indgriben mod virussen ikke sker ret mange steder. Island er det eneste land i Europa, der har fulgt en strategi som Ifos, og med godt resultat.
No-Covid – Consistently Reducing the Number of Infections
In the No-Covid strategy co-developed by the ifo Institute, the aim is to get through the pandemic with the lowest possible health and economic costs and consequential damage.
The means of doing so is a concept that consistently reduces infection figures and offers regionally differentiated, sustainable options for reopening the economy. Stop-gap measures must be replaced by a long-term and binding overall plan.
Supplementing vaccination measures, hygiene rules, and other means of infection control, the No-Covid strategy is based on four interlocking elements: Green Zones, early detection, acceleration of test-trace-isolate (TTI) , and local outbreak management.
Applying this strategy can achieve low incidence rates, which in turn would enable a comprehensive and sustainable easing of restrictions in all sectors of society, while avoiding a resurgence in infection rates and, by extension, further lockdowns.
The idea that the goals of public health and the economy are in conflict is false. Studies show that measures to quickly manage and contain the pandemic do not come at the expense of economic development, but can actually serve the recovery of the economy.
Research from the US and Scandinavia shows that only a smaller proportion of the decline in consumption and job losses in the spring of 2020 can be attributed to the lockdown measures during the first wave of the coronavirus. Most of the economic decline can be explained by the high level of local infection; in other words, consumption would drop significantly even without closure orders, in some cases with a time lag.
Studies by the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the ifo Institute show that, by renewing the lockdown measures in October and November 2020, Germany did not succeed in reducing the reproductive number (Rt) to below 1. Instead, the extension caused many deaths and inflicted the greatest economic damage.
It is more economically beneficial in the medium term to use effective infection control measures and to temporarily curtail economic activity to bring infections down to an incidence rate that allows the public health service to exercise full local control, conduct contact tracing, and contain infections. The measures of a lockdown and opening strategy should be chosen so that Rt is in the range of 0.7–0.8.
The stability of an infection situation in which some restrictions have been relaxed also plays an important role in a containment strategy that is best for the economy. If a resurgence of infections is highly probable, this leads to significant economic disadvantages due to the high degree of uncertainty, and unfortunately could bring about a renewed impairment of economic activity (even without government-imposed closures).
