How COVID‐19 Medical Supply Shortages Led to Extraordinary Trade and Industrial Policy
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Bown C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8441910 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:At the centre of the multi-dimensional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shortage of medical supplies in countries with weaker healthcare systems significantly reduced the effectiveness of national and international public health interventions. Using a database of test-kit trade flows and barriers, we estimate the price responsiveness of test-kit demand in a global sample of countries. These estimates allow us to investigate the degree to which import tariffs by leading producers could result in a disruption in global supply chains, price increases, and welfare loss. Simulation experiments indicate that the combination of rising demand for test kits and import dependence magnifies the impact of trade barriers on consumer welfare and this impact is more profound for developing countries.
| S-EPMC9115466 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper examines the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on exports by Chinese cities. We use city-level export data at a monthly frequency from January 2018 through April 2020. Differences-in-differences estimates suggest cities in lockdown experienced a ceteris paribus 34 percentage points reduction in the year-on-year growth rate of exports. The lockdown impacted the intensive and extensive margin, with higher exit and lower new entry into foreign markets. The drop in exports was smaller in (i) coastal cities; (ii) cities with better-developed ICT infrastructure; and (iii) cities with a larger share of potential teleworkers. Time-sensitive and differentiated goods experienced a more pronounced decline in export growth. Global supply chain characteristics matter, with more upstream products and industries that had accumulated larger inventories experiencing a smaller decline in export growth. Also, products that relied more on imported (domestic) intermediates experienced a sharper (flatter) slowdown in export growth. The rapid recovery in cities' exports after lockdowns were lifted suggests the policy was cost-effective in terms of its effects on trade.
| S-EPMC8447424 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDuring the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has cost millions of lives around the globe, caused major morbidity and provoked widespread economic and social disruption. In response, governments have enacted policies to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. This research focuses in on policies aimed at increasing access to essential health products and services by comparing them to the global rules governing trade, investment and intellectual property. We have assessed whether these rules have or could have constrained countries in responding to this and future crises. The study identifies the nature and scope of the trade-related health sector policies implemented by our sample group of countries, selected because of their systemic significance: the United States, Germany, France, China, South Africa and India. Each policy is placed into one of five broad categories covered by trade and investment rules so that we could assess their consistency with those rules.ResultsWe found, among other things, that the types of trade-related health measures were quite diverse. The high-income countries in our study were the most active in the policy space and tended to rely on subsidies-based measures while the middle-income countries relied more heavily on export and import measures. Policies directly relevant to intellectual property protection were virtually non-existent. When evaluating the implemented policies against the global trade and investment rules, we found potential constraints under five different types of rules: those governing subsidies, import and export trade barriers, investment measures, government procurement and trade-related intellectual property.ConclusionsGiven the tension between the global rules and the practices of policymaking during the pandemic, we conclude that the tension must be resolved in favor of governments making policy rather than relying on existing exceptions or pushing national governments to comply more exactly with the rules. Although the pandemic itself does not respect national borders, governance still generally occurs at the national level because national governments are often the only entities with both the legal authority and the practical ability to respond.
| S-EPMC10472676 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade flows using a state-of-the-art gravity model of trade. Using the monthly trade data of 68 countries exporting across 222 destinations between January 2019 and October 2020, our results are threefold. First, we find a greater negative impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade for those countries that were members of regional trade agreements before the pandemic. Second, we find that the impact of COVID-19 is negative and significant when we consider indicators related to governmental actions. Finally, this negative effect is more intense when exporter and importer country share identical income levels. In the latter case, the highest negative impact is found for exports between high-income countries.
| S-EPMC8513914 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Economic shocks from COVID-19, coupled with ongoing US-China tensions, have raised debates around supply chain (or global value chain) organisation, with China at the centre of the storm. However, quantitative studies that consider the global and economy-wide impacts of rerouting supply chains are limited. This study examines the economic and emissions impacts of reorganising supply chains, using Australia-China trade as an example. It augments the Hypothetical Extraction Method by replacing traditional Input-Output analysis with a Computable General Equilibrium analysis. The estimation results demonstrate that in both exports and imports, a trade embargo between Australia and China - despite being compensated for by alternative supply chains-will cause gross domestic production losses and emissions increases for both countries and the world overall. Moreover, even though all other economies gain from the markets left by China, many of them incur overall gross domestic production losses and emission increases. The finding that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and India may also suffer from an Australia-China trade embargo, despite a gain in trade volume, suggests that no country should add fuel to the fire. The results suggest that countries need to defend a rules-based trading regime and jointly address supply chain challenges.
| S-EPMC8488164 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in economic and social lockdowns in most countries all over the globe. Early identification of infected individuals is regarded as one of the most important prerequisites for fighting the pandemic and for returning to a 'New Normal'. Large-scale testing is therefore crucial, but is facing several challenges including shortage of sample collection tools and of molecular biological reagents, and the need for safe electronic communication of medical reports. We present the successful establishment of a holistic SARS-CoV-2 testing platform that covers proband registration, sample collection and shipment, sample testing, and report issuing. The RT-PCR-based virus detection, being central to the platform, was extensively validated: sensitivity and specificity were defined as 96.8% and 100%, respectively; intra-run and inter-run precision were <3%. A novel type of sample swab and an in-house-developed RNA extraction system were shown to perform as good as commercially available products. The resulting flexibility guarantees independence from the current bottlenecks in SARS-CoV-2 testing. Based on our technology, we offered testing at local, national, and global levels. In the present study, we report the results from approx. 18,000 SARS-CoV-2 tests in almost 10,000 individuals from a low-frequency SARS-CoV-2 pandemic area in a homogenous geographical region in north-eastern Germany for a period of 10 weeks (21 March to 31 May 2020). Among the probands, five SARS-CoV-2 positive cases were identified. Comparative analysis of corresponding virus genomes revealed a diverse origin from three of the five currently recognized SARS-CoV-2 phylogenetic clades. Our study exemplifies how preventive SARS-CoV-2 testing can be set up in a rapid and flexible manner. The application of our test has enabled a safe maintenance/resume of critical local infrastructure, e.g., nursing homes where more than 5000 elderlies and caretakers got tested. The strategy outlined by the present study may serve as a blueprint for the implementation of large-scale preventive SARS-CoV-2 testing elsewhere.
| S-EPMC7399816 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background In the pandemic time, many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines. An access to imported vaccines or ways to produce them locally becomes the principal source of hope. But developing a strategy for success in obtaining and allocating vaccines is not easy task. The governments in those countries have faced difficult decision whether to accept or reject offers of vaccine diplomacy, weighing price and availability of COVID-19 vaccines against concerns over their efficacy and safety. Our aim was to analyze public opinion regarding the governmental strategies to obtain COVID-19 vaccines in three Central Asian countries, focusing particularly on possible ethical issues. Methods We searched opinions expressed either in Russian or in the respective national languages. We provided data of the debate within three countries, drawn from social media postings and other sources. The opinion data was not restricted by source and time. This allowed to collect a wide range of possible opinions that could be expressed regarding COVID-19 vaccine supply and public's participation in vaccine trials. We recognized ethical issues and possible questions concerning different ethical frameworks. We also considered additional information or scientific data, in the process of reasoning. Results As a result, public views on their respective government policies on COVID-19 vaccine supply ranged from strongly negative to slightly positive. We extracted most important issues from public debates, for our analysis. The first issue involved trade-offs between quantity, speed, price, freedom, efficacy and safety in the vaccines. The second set of issues arouse in connection with the request to site a randomized trial in one of countries (Uzbekistan). After considering additional evidences, we weighed individual with public risks and benefits to make specific judgements concerning every issue. Conclusions We believe that our analysis would be a helpful example of solving ethical issues that can rise concerning COVID-19 vaccine supply round the world. The public view can be highly critical, helping to spot such issues. An ignoring this view can lead to major problems, which in turn, can become a serious obstacle for the vaccine coverage and epidemics' control in the countries and regions.
| S-EPMC8328076 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn the pandemic time, many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines. Access to imported vaccines or ways to produce them locally became the principal source of hope for these countries. But developing a strategy for success in obtaining and allocating vaccines was not easy task. The governments in those countries have faced the difficult decision whether to accept or reject offers of vaccine diplomacy, weighing the price and availability of COVID-19 vaccines against the concerns over their efficacy and safety. We aimed to analyze public opinion regarding the governmental strategies to obtain COVID-19 vaccines in three Central Asian countries, focusing particularly on possible ethical issues.MethodsWe searched for opinions expressed either in Russian or in the respective national languages. We provided data on the debate within three countries, drawn from social media postings and other sources. The opinion data was not restricted by source and time. This allowed collecting a wide range of possible opinions that could be expressed regarding COVID-19 vaccine supply and human participation in the vaccine trial. We recognized ethical issues and possible questions concerning different ethical frameworks. We also considered scientific data and other information, in the process of reasoning.ResultsAs a result, public views on their respective government policies on COVID-19 vaccine supply ranged from strongly negative to slightly positive. We extracted the most important issues from public debates, for our analysis. The first issue involved trade-offs between quantity, speed, price, freedom, efficacy, and safety in the vaccines. The second set of issues arose in connection with the request to site a randomized trial in one of the countries (Uzbekistan). After considering additional evidence, we weighed individual and public risks against the benefits to make specific judgements concerning every issue.ConclusionsWe believe that our analysis would be a helpful example of solving ethical issues that can arise concerning COVID-19 vaccine supply around the world. The public view can be highly critical, helping to spot such issues. An ignoring this view can lead to major problems, which in turn, can become a serious obstacle for the vaccine coverage and epidemics' control in the countries and regions.
| S-EPMC8906360 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although COVID-19 emerged as a global shock, governments adopted non-pharmaceutical policy responses that were rather heterogeneous, depending on cultural and institutional characteristics. At the country level, the stringency of 'lockdown'-type policies should be set to achieve the best possible trade-off between economic and fatality dynamics, obviously accounting for possible cross-border influences. To allow for policy learning, I assume that the first country implementing a policy initiative that is worth emulating must either get the best possible health or the best possible economic outcome. I propose a combination of sign and magnitude restrictions, embedded in a global VAR model, to identify idiosyncratic policy shocks that spill over and influence policy responses abroad. Once policy shocks are identified, I run a comparison exercise between two model specifications, i.e. with and without policy emulation. Within a given a sample, this methodology can be used to find when and where policy lessons can be identified. I find that, among 17 developed and developing countries, few can offer lessons based on their policy initiatives, but several others might get better trade-offs through policy emulation, although in reality this outcome is not guaranteed to have occurred.
| S-EPMC8525467 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The need to control the sanitary situation during the COVID-19 pandemic has led governments to implement several restrictions with substantial social and economic impacts. We explored people's trade-offs in terms of their income, life restrictions, education, and poverty in the society, compared to their willingness to avoid deaths. We applied a web-based discrete choice experiment to elicit preferences of the Portuguese citizens for these attributes and computed the marginal rate of substitution in terms of avoided deaths. We recorded 2,191 responses that faced the possibility of having 250 COVID-19 related deaths per day as the worst possible outcome from the choice levels presented. Estimates suggested that individuals would be willing to sacrifice 30% instead of 10% of their income to avoid approximately 47 deaths per day during the first six months of 2021. For the same period, they would also accept 30% of the students' population to become educationally impaired, instead of 10%, to avoid approximately 25 deaths; a strict lockdown, instead of mild life restrictions, to avoid approximately 24 deaths; and 45% of the population to be in risk of poverty, instead of 25%, to avoid approximately 101 deaths. Our paper shows that avoiding deaths was strongly preferred to the remaining societal impacts; and that being a female, as well as working on site, led individuals to be more averse to such health hazards. Furthermore, we show how a DCE can be used to assess the societal support to decision-making during times of crisis.
| S-EPMC9757580 | biostudies-literature