We are living through one of the worst health crises in recent history. Let’s begin with what we know about this virus. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that can cause serious respiratory disease. The outbreak dates back to (at least) December 2019 and seems to have started in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization (WHO) was informed about the outbreak by Chinese officials on December 31, 2019. WHO first declared it a public health emergency on January 30, 2020, and then followed it with an official pandemic declaration on March 11, 2020. According to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, the pandemic is affecting 183 countries with about 1.5 million confirmed cases and more than 80,000 deaths. As the virus spread around the world, countries adopted travel bans and some of those countries went on to implement a complete ‘lockdown’. International travel has stopped; people are maintaining social distancing, and non-essential businesses have been closed for weeks. Life as we thought we knew it came to a halt in a very short space of time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already led to serious health impacts that are expected to get even bigger in coming months. While the exact mortality rate is still debated, it is clear that the case fatality rate is higher among older age groups. The latest (at the time of writing) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dated March 26, 2020 put the fatality rate for people aged 85+ somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 4. This is based on cases reported in the U.S. but the CDC report indicates that the numbers are similar to those from China. Of course, we need to keep in mind that both young and old could be infected by the virus and spread it to others. Besides the age of an individual, the severity of the disease also depends on any pre-existing health condition. It is noteworthy that Italy, a country with one of the oldest populations in the world, has also the greatest number of deaths (and the highest fatality rate) in the world so far. It is possible that the elderly share in a country’s population may play a big role in the health impact of the pandemic. Although the data coming out of Japan should give us pause before jumping to conclusions: the country has the oldest population in the world and it has only a fraction of Italy’s COVID-19 cases and deaths. This is a little puzzling but it tells us that there is a combination of factors that gives us the health outcomes we see today. Government policies, family relationships, culture and other socio-economic characteristics have to be factored in alongside the age structure of the population.
I find it particularly troublesome when I hear someone say that younger people shouldn’t worry too much about this outbreak since it mainly impacts the older folks. There was no evidence of social distancing when college students were seen partying together in the Florida beaches only about two weeks ago during the Spring break in the U.S. Of course, the media may be partly to blame for this. The younger generation should be concerned as much as (if not more than) the older generation. First, there is still a risk that an infected young person might get seriously ill. Second, they may carry the virus without any major symptoms and spread it to their family members, friends or others who may be in higher risk groups. Finally, the health impact of the outbreak is not the only impact. We should also expect serious economic and fiscal impacts around the world. It is almost a certainty that a COVID-19 recession is on the horizon. The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that the U.S. economy already lost 701,000 jobs in March. Economies in Europe and other parts of the world are having similar economic problems. The younger generation will definitely be impacted directly by what is expected to be a very tough labor market. While, a historic $2 trillion federal stimulus, known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, was passed recently to counter the blow to the U.S. economy, it is far from clear that even a stimulus of this magnitude would be enough. In his recent column on the COVID-19 recession, Harvard Economics Professor Kenneth Rogoff noted “after all, the world is experiencing something akin to an alien invasion.” Some sectors such as leisure and hospitality are particularly vulnerable due to dependence on traveling and tourism. Leisure and hospitality is also a sector that hires a lot of young and lower-income individuals.
The fiscal impact of the outbreak will be substantial as well. In a recent policy brief written with my students, Scott Cunningham and Jaylin Hendricks, we show that a lot of states rely very heavily on sales tax revenues, which will be impacted quickly and strongly in the recession. We also show that state tax revenues declined dramatically during the last recession. That means the federal government in the U.S. will have to pick up the tab regarding government expenditures but this is also a period of very high debt levels in the U.S. and elsewhere. Oh and let’s not forget that there are still 27.5 million people without health insurance in the U.S. As government budgets start to shrink, everyone (young or old) will suffer. While we will eventually recover from this terrible pandemic, it is important to remind ourselves that nobody (and no generation) is really immune from its impacts. We are all in the same boat.
About the Author
Dr Tosun is the Barbara Smith Campbell Distinguished Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is an affiliate research fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), a research fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF), and a fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO).
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We welcome your comments on this or any of the Institute's blog posts. Please feel free to email comments to be posted on your behalf to administrator@ageing.ox.ac.uk or use the Disqus facility linked below. Her dissertation focuses on demographic change, intergenerational justice and participation.
Opinions of the blogger is their own and not endorsed by the Institute
Comments Welcome: We welcome your comments on this or any of the Institute's blog posts. Please feel free to email comments to be posted on your behalf to administrator@ageing.ox.ac.uk or use the Disqus facility linked below.
