COVID Cost An Estimated 160x More Other Pandemics
August 28th, 2020
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that the global economic impact of COVID-19 could be $8.8 trillion. The ADB assumes that this scenario follows a 6-month containment (described below as “Long Containment Scenario”), where travel bans, productivity, and investment cuts last 6 months. The other scenario, a short-term containment, would last 3-months and result in a $5.8 trillion economic impact globally.
The table below shows the GDP impact (in millions $) and GDP (as a % drop from 2018) for each region.
The total impact figure includes health spending as well as shocks to:
- trade (lower tourism, receipts and trade)
- production disruptions
- impaired labor mobility (transport resctrictions, work from home)
- lower consumption growth
- weaker investment growth
COVID Cost 160x More Than Ebola & Other Recent Pandemics
2003: SARS – $40 billion (770 death toll)
2006: H5N1 – $40 billion (175 death toll)
2009: H1N1 – $45 billion (200,000 death toll)
2014: Ebola – $55 billion (11,300 death toll)
2019: COVID – $8,800 billion (or $8.8trillion and 830,000 death toll)
