Not so long ago, on September 25, 2019, while delivering the keynote address at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, Prime Minister Modi talked about the future direction of India’s growth story. He emphasized, this story was built on four pillars, namely Democracy, Demography, Demand and Decisiveness. Today, except perhaps the first pillar – Democracy, all three other pillars have been greatly impacted, especially by Covid-19 pandemic, just round a year’s time. Interestingly, while delivering the 74th Independence Day speech on August 15, 2020, the Prime Minister indicated: ‘Covid-19 is not an obstacle big enough to hamper self-reliant India’s growth’
That said, out of those 3 pillars, ‘demography’ of the country, I reckon, offers a key differential economic advantage to the nation. According to the Prime Minister’s own words: “This growth is facilitated by India’s demographic dividend and young and talented people.” Alarmingly, the collateral damage of the new Coronavirus pandemic has significantly affected this critical growth pillar, as well. Thus, I would cite this ‘pillar’ as an example, to drive home the point – how Covid-19 is impacting the demographic dividend, impeding the economic growth of a country, like India.
At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear today, the new Coronavirus ‘maze’ is refusing to signal any clear pathway to get back to the ‘old normal,’ while the ‘new normal’ is yet to crystallize.From this perspective, let me deliberate in this article, with examples from the following two important areas:
- A paradox that is directly related to Covid-19 transmission in various countries.
- The collateral damage on ‘demographic dividend’.
These illustrations will vindicate that there isn’t any other meaningful option – for an indefinite period, but to wait (or rush) for vaccines, in the prevailing quandary.
The paradox:
As the world awaits scientifically proven, safe and effective vaccines, duly approved by the drug regulators, to come out of Covid-19’s lethal shackles, several paradoxes further add to the complexity of the problem. Many of these seem to be quite difficult to untangle. One such paradox, for example, the observed case-fatality ratio (CFR). It indicates, the number of deaths either per 100 confirmed Covid-19 cases or per 100,000 population. The latter represents a country’s general population, with both confirmed cases and healthy people.
As analyzed by the Johns Hopkins University - among the twenty countries most affected by COVID-19 worldwide as of August 09, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) had over 300,000 confirmed cases along with 70.16 deaths per 100,000 of its inhabitants. Peru and Chile had the second and third highest total per 100,000 of the population with 64.55 and 53.45 respectively, while the U.S. followed – with 49.65.
Similarly, while India shows a CFR of 2.0, other countries – quite different, particularly in economic and demographic parameters, are also not doing too badly, some are doing even, better as far as the CFR is concerned. These nations include, Pakistan 2.1, Vietnam 1.8, Thailand 1.7, Myanmar 1.7, Philippines 1.7, Australia 1.6, Malaysia 1.4, Bangladesh 1.3, Sri Lanka 0.4, Maldives 0.4 and Nepal, to name a few.
From these numbers, it appears, the CFR has neither any bearing on the degree of overall economic development of a country, nor how robust is the nation’s health care infrastructure, beside others. In that case, in which areas a country should focus to keep Convid-19 death rate low? A specific answer to this question is awaited. Till then does it not remain a paradox?
Impact on demographic dividend:
Besides the direct impact of rapid transmission of the Coronavirus infection and its associated fall outs, the livelihoods of many and crippling blows on the national economy,...continue reading by clicking on https://bit.ly/3g2ewCk
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