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A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Ruchir Agarwal
  • Ms. Gita Gopinath

Abstract

Urgent steps are needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain from the COVID-19 pandemic that are exacerbating already-diverging recoveries. Pandemic policy is also economic policy as there is no durable end to the economic crisis without an end to the health crisis. Building on existing initiatives, this paper proposes pragmatic actions at the national and multilateral level to expeditiously defeat the pandemic. The proposal targets: (1) vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022, (2) tracking and insuring against downside risks, and (3) ensuring widespread testing and tracing, maintaining adequate stocks of therapeutics, and enforcing public health measures in places where vaccine coverage is low. The benefits of such measures at about $9 trillion far outweigh the costs which are estimated to be around $50 billion—of which $35 billion should be paid by grants from donors and the residual by national governments potentially with the support of concessional financing from bilateral and multilateral agencies. The grant funding gap identified by the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator amounts to about $22 billion, which the G20 recognizes as important to address. This leaves an estimated $13 billion in additional grant contributions needed to finance our proposal. Importantly, the strategy requires global cooperation to secure upfront financing, upfront vaccine donations, and at-risk investment to insure against downside risks for the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruchir Agarwal & Ms. Gita Gopinath, 2021. "A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2021/004, International Monetary Fund.
  • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfsdn:2021/004
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    Cited by:

    1. Agarwal, Ruchir & Gaule, Patrick, 2022. "What drives innovation? Lessons from COVID-19 R&D," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Griffin, Bethany & Conner, Mark & Norman, Paul, 2022. "Applying an extended protection motivation theory to predict Covid-19 vaccination intentions and uptake in 50–64 year olds in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    3. Gita Gopinath & Petya Koeva Brooks & Malhar Nabar, 2021. "The long reach of COVID-19: multilateral policy priorities to limit persistent divergences," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 527-538, December.
    4. Pragyan Deb & Davide Furceri & Daniel Jimenez & Siddharth Kothari & Jonathan D. Ostry & Nour Tawk, 2023. "Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine Rollouts and Their Effects on Health Outcomes," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 71-89, January.
    5. Pragyan Deb & Davide Furceri & Daniel Jimenez & Siddharth Kothari & Jonathan D. Ostry & Nour Tawk, 2022. "The effects of COVID-19 vaccines on economic activity," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 158(1), pages 1-25, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Pandemic; Economic crisis; pandemic policy; financing facilities; donor country; LMIC vaccination; vaccination target; Income; Manufacturing; Global; Africa;
    All these keywords.

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