Opinion: Economy or Health: Governments Dilemma over the World

INTRODUCTION:

The emergency phase of the COVID 19 pandemic is slowly coming to an end. No government was prepared for it, and too many failures in the initial assessment but did what they could afterward. In the current second phase, however, any mistakes will not be easy to excuse. The authorities must better identify the risk factors and take specific countermeasures. These must be explained to the people at risk so that they can change their behavior. In addition, vital infrastructure must be guaranteed, and freedom of action must be ensured when new data is available. The problem here is the trade-off between the well-being of the individual and the welfare of society. Finding and maintaining this balance is not easy[1].

The coronavirus pandemic is creating a two-headed problem for governments. Economic policymakers are being forced to perform a delicate balancing act. As with all balancing acts, failure to achieve and maintain can produce dire consequences.

Normally economic downturns are the result of widespread and sustained loss of purchasing power following disasters such as financial-market collapses, political upheavals, trade disruptions, and agricultural failures. In such situations, the makers of monetary, fiscal, and trade policies know what they have to do: Maintain purchasing power by making it possible for producers to continue operating and for consumers to keep buying what the producers are producing and the distributors are selling. This they do by making appropriate policies in such economic policy tools as loan availabilities, interest rates, taxes, and benefit payments[2].

HEALTH:

According to the constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), health is a fundamental right. Health is a collective term for the physical, mental, and social well-being of every individual. However, “healthy” is not synonymous with “normal” if the norm is understood as the average in a statistical sense. This differentiation naturally remained wishful thinking in the recent situation where hospital beds and ventilators were already in short supply. The fight against the pandemic is now being fought with statistical averages for R (infections per infected person) and Z (number of deaths above the long-term death rate). With the latest easing measures, a calculated risk is being taken with each country deciding what and when. It is always correctly pointed out that these would be partially or even completely reversed if the ratios were to deteriorate again. Although the financial world tends to associate such easing with the economy, it also serves to restore the mental and social well-being of individuals. Meeting friends, football matches and holidays abroad are just a few examples of the need for psychological rewards in bad times[3].

ECONOMY:

The economy serves the material preservation and safeguarding of the life of each individual or diversity of people. Its task and aim are the permanent fulfillment of human needs for goods and services. The economic order depends on the ability of people and their political institutions and organs (economic policy). The purpose of economic policy is to increase economic performance and productivity and thus to improve human well-being[4].

Economic policymakers all over the world are poised on the horns of a dilemma. The dilemma is that they are called upon to accomplish two things at the same time: saving lives and protecting jobs. The two objectives, which have been characterized as lives-versus-livelihoods and deaths-versus-dollars, are to a large extent antithetical to one another. If communities are locked down, lives are saved but jobs are lost; if, on the other hand, communities are unlocked in disregard of established public-health protocols, jobs will be restored but mortality rates are bound to rise. Using tried and tested economic policy tools, it’s easy to increase purchasing power and thereby restore jobs. But this remedial operation must be carried out in a manner that does not cause surges in infection and monthly rates. Keeping people from getting sick and dying versus making it possible for people to continue earning a living: this is the delicate balancing act that the world’s economic policymakers are called upon to perform in these times[5].

It’s an exceedingly difficult balancing act, but it's to be performed. Lives can not be saved at the expense of livelihoods and deaths can't be preferred over dollars.
For most economic policymakers, this is often unchartered territory. To bring down infection and mortality rates and eventually contain the coronavirus, what proportion economic reopening should be done, and the way and when? The economic policymakers weren't taught these items in their economics and finance classes. within the present crisis, they're making policy decisions in line with best judgments supported economic principles and ethical and Christian precepts.
Surges in infection and mortality rates in countries that haven't consistently observed the health safety protocols, and sharp increases in infections and deaths in countries that had been declared COVID-19-free, indicate that achieving and maintaining the proper policy balance within the present crisis is extremely much a piece current.
Policymaking has never been like this for today’s economic policymakers. When the present crisis shall are solved, they'll hope that they won’t try this quite policymaking again in their lifetimes[6].

CONCLUSIONS

The Corona crisis shows how fragile the balance between the needs of the individual and the demands of the collective is, especially when emotions come into play. It is no coincidence that people with other health problems and ethnic minorities or the economically disadvantaged are more affected. It is also no coincidence that countries with a “social” market economy perform better than those where the economy has free rein. Reform of capitalism, as called for by various experts, would probably be welcome. The effects of the Corona crisis will and should occupy us for some time to come.

This article is authored by Tanzim Surani, a 4th-year student pursuing a 5-year law course [BA LLB (Hons.)] at the GLS Law College, Gujarat University.

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[1] https://www.aquila.ch/en/blog/the-dilemma-of-health-versus-economy/, last accessed on, 18/07/2020

[2] https://manilastandard.net/opinion/columns/business-class-by-rudy-romero/326901/policymakers-dilemma-in-a-health-related-crisis.html, last accessed on, 18/07/2020

[3] Ibid.

[4] https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/wicksteed-the-commonsense-of-political-economy, last accessed on, 17/07/2020

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.