Can our economy bounce back from this?
- Stephen M. Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, gives insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts American economies.
- Calling it a "trade-off between public health and economic health," Miller explains why social distancing is a necessary measure to avoid a total crash of economies.
- The SIR model, which is a guide to assessing how much of the population is actively infected, shows what could happen if the active cases of infection goes above 10% of the population.
COVID-19 and the American economy
Photo by Maderla on Shutterstock
From non-essential businesses closing down to people experiencing temporary loss of work - what will the economic impact of this pandemic be in the near and distant future?
Stephen M. Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic-Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agreed to chat with Big Think to answer some of the most pressing questions about how pandemics such as COVID-19 can impact the American economy.
COVID-19 - the trade-off between public health and the health of the economy
"The COVID-19 event caused a trade-off between public health and economic health," explains Miller. "In order to protect public health, governors felt it necessary to lock down their state's economies by closing down non-essentials and asking residents to go home."
This lockdown, according to Miller, is considered an adoption of nationally social-distancing regulations which has seen an instantaneous recession. He goes on to explain the risk of bankruptcy many small businesses are facing:
"The exposure [to facing bankruptcy] that businesses face depends on the liquid reserves they hold that they can use to survive a large loss of revenue from declining business activity."
While there is no way to tell just how deeply small businesses will be impacted, it will likely involve many small business closures.
What is the trajectory of COVID-19's impact on the economy?
Miller says that the effect on the American economy depends on the length of the pandemic. The longer COVID-19 lingers, the deeper the impact on the economy will be and the longer it could take for businesses and residents to recover.
What can people do to help the economy during these difficult economic times?
"People can follow the guidance of public health officials on social distancing and staying at home to solve the pandemic problem. The federal government has a big role to play in building bridges across the time the pandemic shuts down the economy, bridges for workers and small businesses so that the economy can take off again after the pandemic ends."
Can past pandemics give us an idea of what to expect about the short and long-term repercussions of COVID-19 on the American economy?
"This event appears to conform to the characteristics of the Spanish Flu in 1918-1919," explains Miller, "[That] pandemic killed 675,000 individuals in the US (0.8% of the 1910 population). Given today's population of 331 million, that translates into about 2.6 million deaths."
Miller further explains that our healthcare system and the structures in place to re-balance the American economy are much improved since the 1900s – however, our much-improved geographic mobility makes the transmission of a pandemic more problematic than it was in the past.
The SIR model
How can we estimate the damage caused to our economy from COVID-19?
Image by Ascannio on Shutterstock
The SIR model is a guide to assessing the spread of an epidemic in a population in which the total population is divided into three categories:
- Susceptible (S)
- Actively Infected (I)
- Recovered/Deceased (R)
How an epidemic pans out vastly depends on the transition rates between these three categories. According to recently published working paperecently published working paper by UCLA professor Andrew Atkeson, special attention will need to be given if the fraction of active infections throughout the population exceeds 1%. At this point, the health system forecast will be severely challenged.
Trajectory shows that if the fraction of active infections were to reach 10% or higher, this would result in staffing shortages for key financial and economic infrastructure, which could have devastating results.
The main conclusion of this paper is that the evolution of COVID-19 in the United States (and worldwide) will likely require social distancing measures to be maintained for an entire year or longer until a vaccine can be developed to avoid severe public health and economic consequences.
The economic costs of social distancing will be felt deeply across every state's economy as businesses close and employees are instructed to stay home, but the cost of a large cumulative burden of lost work time due to the disease further spreading could be much higher.
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A close up of Bathynomus raksasa
Humanity knows surprisingly little about the ocean depths. An often-repeated bit of evidence for this is the fact that humanity has done a better job mapping the surface of Mars than the bottom of the sea. The creatures we find lurking in the watery abyss often surprise even the most dedicated researchers with their unique features and bizarre behavior.
A recent expedition off the coast of Java discovered a new isopod species remarkable for its size and resemblance to Darth Vader.
The ocean depths are home to many creatures that some consider to be unnatural.
Bathynomus raksasa specimen (left) next to a closely related supergiant isopod, B. giganteus (right)
Sidabalok CM, Wong HP-S, Ng PKL (ZooKeys 2020)
According to LiveScience, the Bathynomus genus is sometimes referred to as "Darth Vader of the Seas" because the crustaceans are shaped like the character's menacing helmet. Deemed Bathynomus raksasa ("raksasa" meaning "giant" in Indonesian), this cockroach-like creature can grow to over 30 cm (12 inches). It is one of several known species of giant ocean-going isopod. Like the other members of its order, it has compound eyes, seven body segments, two pairs of antennae, and four sets of jaws.
The incredible size of this species is likely a result of deep-sea gigantism. This is the tendency for creatures that inhabit deeper parts of the ocean to be much larger than closely related species that live in shallower waters. B. raksasa appears to make its home between 950 and 1,260 meters (3,117 and 4,134 ft) below sea level.
Perhaps fittingly for a creature so creepy looking, that is the lower sections of what is commonly called The Twilight Zone, named for the lack of light available at such depths.
It isn't the only giant isopod, far from it. Other species of ocean-going isopod can get up to 50 cm long (20 inches) and also look like they came out of a nightmare. These are the unusual ones, though. Most of the time, isopods stay at much more reasonable sizes.
The discovery of this new species was published in ZooKeys. The remainder of the specimens from the trip are still being analyzed. The full report will be published shortly.
What benefit does this find have for science? And is it as evil as it looks?
The discovery of a new species is always a cause for celebration in zoology. That this is the discovery of an animal that inhabits the deeps of the sea, one of the least explored areas humans can get to, is the icing on the cake.
Helen Wong of the National University of Singapore, who co-authored the species' description, explained the importance of the discovery:
"The identification of this new species is an indication of just how little we know about the oceans. There is certainly more for us to explore in terms of biodiversity in the deep sea of our region."
The animal's visual similarity to Darth Vader is a result of its compound eyes and the curious shape of its head. However, given the location of its discovery, the bottom of the remote seas, it may be associated with all manner of horrifically evil Elder Things and Great Old Ones.
