[The Editors' Verdict] Stopped Time Is the Enemy of the Economy

Kim Kyung-soo, Professor Emeritus at Sungkyunkwan University

"If you don't die from the disease, you will starve to death." "The treatment could be worse than the disease. People need to return to work." These were the words exchanged last week in S?o Paulo, Brazil, between a supporter opposing social distancing and President Jair Bolsonaro. Although the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started late in Brazil, a country with a population of 210 million, it is spreading at a frightening pace.

"I am more afraid of hunger than the virus." This is the statement of a migrant worker who came to Delhi, India, for work. At the end of last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a three-week nationwide lockdown in the country of 1.3 billion people, and hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who had come to the cities lost their jobs and are returning to their hometowns.

Poverty cheapens people's health and lives. Mortality rates from diseases other than COVID-19 are high, and in poor countries, quarantine or lockdowns are another hardship for those who live day-to-day. Social distancing is a sad reality that cannot be properly maintained in low-income countries.

Worldwide, more than one million people have tested positive for COVID-19, but there is no sign that the pandemic curve is flattening. Advanced countries bear much of the blame. Europe, the United States, and Japan initially treated the situation with indifference as if it were a distant problem, only to face a crisis later, akin to locking the barn after the horse has bolted. The heated mask debate seems to reveal the hidden true faces of these developed countries.

If there had been strong international cooperation like the Group of Twenty (G20) during the global financial crisis, COVID-19 might not have become a pandemic. Asian countries, which were hit early but managed relatively well, are now facing a second wave of COVID-19 attacks.

Singapore, with a population of 5.7 million and praised as a model country for quarantine, had just over 200 cumulative confirmed cases in mid-March, but the number has continued to rise, surpassing 1,000 last week. Singapore shares many similarities with South Korea, which has exceeded 10,000 confirmed cases despite all efforts. About 25% of new confirmed cases are imported from countries where the pandemic occurred later, such as Europe, Australia, and the United States. In addition, there has been a significant increase in locally transmitted cases with unknown infection routes. The Singapore government is responding by implementing stricter social distancing, a complete ban on overseas arrivals, and strengthened nighttime business regulations. Singapore's example suggests that controlling the pandemic curve will not be easy for South Korea either.

Even if the virus peaks and begins to decline in Europe and the United States, it is unlikely that the pandemic will end easily. This is because many countries, such as those in Latin America, have experienced late onset of infections. Ultimately, the pandemic will only end when it truly ends.

Because of this outlook, governments inevitably face a serious dilemma. Since the number of confirmed cases is not expected to decrease noticeably in the near future, the longer social distancing continues, the greater the negative ripple effects on the economy will be. Time stopped is the enemy of the economy. No matter how much money is poured in to stabilize financial markets, corporate debt increases, households become impoverished, and government finances worsen.

In preparation for the prolonged pandemic, governments must carefully weigh social distancing and its economic costs, propose concrete social distancing measures that can maximize cost-effectiveness, and find ways to escape from the severely contracted economic activities. Taiwan, which has been most successful in quarantine (348 confirmed cases as of the 3rd), set detailed guidelines and reopened schools at the end of February.

Kim Kyung-soo, Professor Emeritus, Sungkyunkwan University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.