Covid-19

OP-ED

Covid-19: Forget the gig economy, we need the delivery economy

We will have to give serious thought to finding an optimal balance of economic activity while still maintaining a distancing strategy, say the writers. (Photo: John Stupart)

A too-soon relaxation of physical distancing may risk further infection waves. For the foreseeable future, we need to forget about returning to normality. We need to see similar bold and unprecedented actions on the economic front. This is a time to collectively reimagine our economy and work to rebuild resilience.

A few months into the Covid-19 crisis, and it feels like the global economy has hit a brick wall.  Much of the world has entered lockdown to break the chain of virus transmission. We know that such drastic action works, as eventually new cases diminish.

While these developments give hope, let us acknowledge the basic facts. First, we know that this virus is extremely infectious. Second, the symptoms can be very severe and the virus has been shown to have a high death rate and some patients require highly specialised medical care, while in others, it can be asymptomatic. Third, we have no proven drugs for treatment, no vaccine and we are still a very long way off from the so-called “herd immunity”.

This means that there are no shortcuts to establish medical protocols to deal with the crisis, meaning that proven, safe and effective drug and vaccine development will take time. The gold standard of randomised controlled trials is the only way we can be sure, with a high degree of certainty, that whichever drugs or vaccines are produced work in the way the manufacturers claim. A true, lasting and safe treatment will have to be subject to the gold standard to be universally accepted. This leaves us with the likely scenario of continued infections and deaths all the way through 2020.

While many developed countries have made great strides in flattening the curve of transmission, we should be mindful of many less-developed countries who may struggle. If developed countries with access to capital and well-developed healthcare systems have struggled, we should be rightfully fearful of the prospects for poorer countries, which often have dense populations living with diseases such as HIV and TB that weaken the immune system. This could lead to a “perfect storm” scenario ultimately overwhelming the healthcare system and leading to unnecessary deaths.

So, in the absence of near-term medical interventions, we are better off maintaining the social distancing measures to varying degrees. However, slowing the epidemic down in this way, by definition means slowing the economy down and we will have to give serious thought to finding an optimal balance of economic activity while still maintaining a distancing strategy.

We have already been warned by experts that a too-soon relaxation of distancing may risk further infection waves. Such a plan needs to be built on a robust medical foundation of serological testing – the widespread testing of individuals for antibodies produced by the body in response to infection. Importantly though, these realities mean for the foreseeable future, we will need to forget about returning to normality.

So we will need to see similar bold and unprecedented actions on the economic front. This is a time to collectively reimagine our economy and work to rebuild resilience. A phased relaxation of lockdown regulations will be required, and we should allow workers able to work from home to continue doing that. Second, broken supply chains on a global scale will soon mean disruptions and if ever there needed to be incentives given for local companies to move up the value chain, it is now. Third, we also postulate that an incentivised delivery-based and preferably cashless economy can be a successful short-term measure.  

This would allow many businesses (outside of the already-open essential goods like groceries and pharmaceuticals) to reopen, but they could only trade on a delivery basis. In-store sales would continue to be banned. A delivery economy is already successfully built into many current business models, but in seeking a balance between restarting an economy and balancing health risks, it needs to be incentivised and massively scaled.

The government could announce these phased moves together with incentives for delivery workers, especially if it creates new employment. While prioritising a lockdown is essential, we are not in a fiscal position to provide a backstop for every business, and service-oriented businesses will still struggle and will require ongoing financial support.

Such a programme of phased relaxation would need to be accompanied by a rigorous testing programme. Monitoring of movement on a national scale also becomes imperative as part of managing this transition. Increasing economic activity while still restricting vectors of virus transmission may require some innovative thinking. Naturally, such monitoring means some questions will be asked about privacy, but there are ways to address the major concerns.

There is a way forward for South Africa to tackle these challenges, but living in the hope of a miracle drug should not be the foundation of our strategy. We have, thanks to early government intervention, delayed the onset of an extreme health crisis, but in averting a potential economic crisis, it must also implement a similarly well-thought-out innovative plan without delay. It is time for our leaders across all sectors to be leaders and lead us to a better future. DM

Dr Ashley Pretorius, PhD, is managing director and chief scientific officer of Aminotek, a South African biotechnology company focused on the development of Aptamer technology for diagnostic purposes. He was previously an associate professor at the University of Western Cape (UWC) researching Disease Diagnostics and a post-doctoral fellow of the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI).

Arno Lawrenz, B.Sc (Hons), CFA, is currently the global investment strategist at Ashburton Investments with oversight of Global Multi-Asset funds, and was previously the founder and chief investment officer of Atlantic Asset Management.

Dr Jared Mackenzie, PhD, is a medical scientist with extensive experience in several fields including tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. He is currently involved in the study of novel therapeutics for the treatment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. He has years of experience in diagnostic development for diseases affecting developing countries and is particularly interested in the development of microfluidics-based rapid diagnostics.

The authors write in their personal capacities.

Gallery

"Information pertaining to Covid-19, vaccines, how to control the spread of the virus and potential treatments is ever-changing. Under the South African Disaster Management Act Regulation 11(5)(c) it is prohibited to publish information through any medium with the intention to deceive people on government measures to address COVID-19. We are therefore disabling the comment section on this article in order to protect both the commenting member and ourselves from potential liability. Should you have additional information that you think we should know, please email [email protected]"

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