A strategy under consideration for reopening the economy

An emerging conversation now being considered in our country (and of course, in many other countries) concerns the ‘balancing game’ of protecting/saving human lives and restoring and sustaining economic livelihoods (i.e. lives versus livelihoods). As one African leader has aptly noted, we have understood how to ‘resurrect a dying or lifeless economy’ but we have not yet understood how to ‘reinject life into a dead person’ – i.e. saving lives trumps preserving livelihoods.

Clearly, the Government’s biggest challenge is to find the most sensible and suitable middle ground between a prolonged national, social and economic shutdown (partial or not) that threatens the economy and a reopening that is too rushed, unplanned, creates a resurgence of infections, and places the health of citizens at serious risk – that is, the balancing game.

This article suggests a few best practices that may help achieve an attractive set of outcomes in this balancing game that the country is currently facing.   

Several models or approaches exist for restarting an economy, including:

(a) a full reboot approach (where a country waits for zero cases and then restarts the economy with minimal restrictions but with prohibited international travel),

(b) a large-scale restart of social and economic activity but with prevailing strict isolation measures for vulnerable populations and stringent but tolerable distancing measures in effect (recommended for low-income countries, for the short-to-medium term, whose ability to quickly ramp up healthcare and testing capabilities is highly constrained), and

(c) a graduated or phased approach where governments or countries relax restrictions in a strategic, deliberate and incremental fashion based on the evolution/progression of the outbreak in the country, the level of readiness in the healthcare system and its machinery, and the level of readiness/preparedness of the public and the commercial entities and other institutions.

Careful assessment of the research may suggest that Barbados might vacillate between model b or model c – my suggestion, however, would be to start off with model c (a graduated/phased approach with increments of relaxation and socio-economic restarts) in the short-term, and progressively segue to model b (a wider scale restart) in the medium- to long-term.

A strategy for reopening an economy should be focused on:

(1) identifying the right time to reopen an economy based on certain prevailing criteria/conditions (when to reopen),

(2) determining the manner in which the economy can be restarted, especially in a graduated/phased approach (i.e. how to reopen), and

(c) how best to manage the level of ‘reopening uncertainty’ through building the necessary environment for transparency, open and planned communications, and public trust.

In line with the work of Brimmer and others (2020) and Florida and Pedigo (2020), this article will address part (a) – i.e. identifying the right time to reopen an economy or (better) ascertaining the right conditions for determining when to initiate the reopening of commercial activity and the activities of other entities. Based on suggestions by Brimmer and others (2020), identifying the right time to reopen an economy is predicated on a country’s healthcare readiness and level of organisational and public readiness/preparedness.

Healthcare readiness

Healthcare readiness can be captured by three key factors. The first factor here is the state of the disease conditions – measured by the number of new cases/infections and the resultant impacts of the disease captured by hospitalisation and mortality rates in the country – a ‘better disease conditions’ metric suggests a sustained decline in the number of new cases for at least 14 days and an associated decreased degree of hospitalisation, mortality and high-risk population infection rates.

The second factor is the healthcare capacity which simply deals with having an adequate supply of healthcare and medical resources (e.g. staff, ventilators, healthcare PPE, hospital beds, etc.) measured against the size of the adult population and/or size of the most vulnerable category of the population in the country.

The third factor is the virus monitoring system, which speaks to the capacity and limits of testing resources nationally and the ability to screen large numbers of asymptomatic individuals, aided by a comprehensive and sustainable contact tracing regime.

Clearly, the last two factors are the most difficult in meeting ‘healthcare’ readiness targets for initiating any reopening, especially for a small Caribbean country like Barbados with limited resources and restricted access to sufficient quantities of health care and medical supplies and personnel. I would reiterate here – the amount of the testing that can be done (and that has been done) and the capacity level of the medical and healthcare resources are crucial factors in deciding when to reopen and the level of relaxation of the social and economic restrictions. However, this country can consider levels of healthcare readiness that may not be as steep as those in more developed and more highly resourced territories before restarting the economy.

Organisational and public readiness

Organisational and public readiness is a critical dimension that the Government needs to take into account in any economic restarting strategy.  The first part of this dimension concerns organisations’ preparedness – captured by assessing how easy, feasible and affordable it would be for organisations and businesses to meet and sustain compliance to requirements of physical distancing, having adequate supplies of hand-washing facilities and disinfecting resources, and protective equipment (masks and screens) – especially for customer-facing staff.

Assessing organisations’ capabilities and technological resources for facilitating home-working/teleworking and other forms of flexible working styles among their staff as well as those organisations with adequate e-commerce and online commercial capabilities to meet customer demand would be critical here.

The second part of this overall dimension – public preparedness – deals with the level and quality of information and communication mechanisms/strategies in operation (to be utilised by state agencies to keep the public apprised on a regular and consistent basis) and the level of compliance/adherence to distancing and safety protocols demonstrated by the general public (i.e. a measure of how willing and compliant members of the public are to function under the certain restrictions/protocols if reopening starts). Hence, the more prepared and ready the commercial and other organisational entities and the members of public are, the closer to an official restart the economy is – within reasonable increments.

Essentially, the determination of ‘when to reopen an economy’ rests on the level of readiness within a country’s healthcare system (i.e. its overall capacity) and the level of readiness within the country’s business/organisational sectors and the public/societal responses (their level of preparedness and willingness to operate under a new arrangement of living/working – ‘the new normal’). How ready the country is on these criteria will influence the extent and nature of any lifting of social and economic restrictions in a manner that properly balances the serious risks to people’s health and concerns for reigniting socio-economic activity at a national level.

Dr Dwayne Devonish is a Senior Lecturer in Management Studies, UWI.