救われた人命コストは１人６億円超？　米ロックダウンの影響試算

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】新型コロナウイルス対策として米州政府が出した営業停止命令により、米経済が打撃を受けたことは間違いない。だが、その正確なコストはこれまで明らかにされてこなかった。（写真は資料写真）
　仏パリのＨＥＣ経営大学院と伊ミラノ・ボッコーニ大学の研究者らの試算によると、米国で新型ウイルスの流行が始まった３月から５月にかけてのロックダウン（都市封鎖）によって救われた命は２万９０００人、一方、コストは計１６９０億ドル（約１７兆６０００億円）だった。救われた人命１人当たりのコストは、約６００万ドル（約６億２５００万円）に上る。
　ＨＥＣ教授で仏国会議員でもあるジャンノエル・バロ氏は「州知事らは一方で人命を救ったが、他方では経済活動を低下させた」と述べた。
　米国では新型ウイルスの感染者が累計１２２０万人を超え、死者数は２５万７０００人近くに上っている。現在も全土で感染が拡大しており、多くの州では再びロックダウンに踏み切っている。
　３月のロックダウンは州や自治体ごとに導入がばらばらで、世界一の経済大国に前例のない混乱をもたらした。その結果、公衆衛生の名の下で生活様式の変更を強制する行政の役割をめぐり議論が生じた。
　春から夏にかけて、規制は程度の差はあれ緩和された。だが、そうした制限は個人の自由を大きく損なう攻撃に等しいと反発する批判派と、制御不能なウイルスを封じ込める方法の一つだと主張する支持派が対立している。
　世界にはもっと厳格な外出禁止令を命じ、違反者に罰則を設けている国もある。米国の措置はそれほど厳しくはなかったが、経済に対する影響はすぐに表れた。３月２８日までの１週間で米失業保険の申請件数は、６９０万件近くまで急増。２月に３．５％という歴史的低水準を記録した失業率は、４月には１４．７％まで跳ね上がった。
　バロ教授はジョンズ・ホプキンス大学と米国勢調査局のデータに基づき、さまざまなロックダウンには米国内総生産（ＧＤＰ）の約０．８％のコストを要したが、調査対象期間の新型ウイルスによる死者数を約４分の１減らすことができたと結論付けた。
　バロ氏は今回、新たに一律の規制を導入することは、新型ウイルスによる死を回避する上でそれほど効果が望めない一方で、コストは依然として高いと主張。「生き延びるためにいわゆる集合的な富を燃やし尽くすことのない、緊急時対応策を考える必要がある」と語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/11/25-13:00）

There's little doubt that government-ordered business shutdowns to stop the spread of Covid-19 damaged the US economy, but the exact cost has not been clear.
Researchers from HEC Paris business school and Bocconi University in Milan have reached a sobering calculation: the closures beginning at the pandemic's onset in March through May saved 29,000 lives -- at a cost of $169 billion, or around $6 million per person.
Governors saved lives on the one hand, but reduced economic activity on the other, Jean-Noel Barrot, a professor at HEC Paris and member of France's National Assembly, told AFP.
How to address the world's largest coronavirus outbreak has become a vexing, politically charged question in the United States, where the virus has infected more than 12.2 million people and killed nearly 257,000.
Virus cases are surging nationwide, prompting many states to again implement restrictions on businesses.
But Barrot warns that changes in Americans' behavior may make renewed business restrictions less effective.
As people become, perhaps, more responsible, as they wear more masks and so on, the effect that we're seeing on infection is going to probably go down, he said.
- Unprecedented shutdown -
The March orders were applied unevenly by state and local governments, but caused unprecedented disruptions to the world's largest economy, prompting a debate over the government's role in forcing people to change their lifestyles in the name of public health.
Critics have said the restrictions, which were relaxed to varying degrees in the spring and summer, are a costly assault on personal freedom, while supporters say they're one of the ways the out-of-control virus can be contained.
A June study published in Nature found that without social distancing and business restrictions, the US would have seen cases hit 5.2 million in early April, rather than their actual level of around 365,000.
Researchers at Columbia University meanwhile found that more than 35,000 lives could have been saved had such measures been put in place just a week earlier than their mid-March imposition.
Though nowhere near as stringent as in other countries where curfews were strictly enforced and rulebreakers penalized, the restrictions' effects on the US economy were seen almost immediately.
Weekly applications for jobless aid shot up, with nearly 6.9 million filings in the week ended March 28, while the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7 percent in April from its historic low of 3.5 percent in February.
Using data from JHU and the US Census Bureau, Barrot determined the various US shutdowns cost about 0.8 percent of total US GDP, but reduced the death toll in the period surveyed by around a quarter.
States' moves to loosen the restrictions and massive stimulus spending helped the economy heal, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.9 percent in October and weekly jobless aid filings down to around 750,000 -- still higher than the worst single week of the 2008-2010 global financial crisis.
While Barrot said new blanket restrictions may not be as effective in preventing deaths this time around, but they will certainly remain expensive.
What we need to think of (are) contingency plans to avoid having to, so to speak, burn so much of our collective wealth in order to stay alive, Barrot said.