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In this Viewpoint, two Harvard economists estimate the cumulative financial costs of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US to date from lost domestic output and health reduction at more than $16 trillion, as a way to put the lesser costs of public health measures, such as population testing.
The estimated cumulative financial costs of the COVID-19 pandemic related to the lost output and health reduction are shown in the Table. The total cost is estimated at more than $16 trillion, or approximately 90% of the annual gross domestic product of the US. For a family of 4, the estimated loss would be nearly $200 000. Approximately half of this amount is the lost income from the COVID-19–induced recession; the remainder is the economic effects of shorter and less healthy life.
Output losses of this magnitude are immense. The lost output in the Great Recession was only one-quarter as large. The economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. By another metric, this cost is approximately the estimate of damages (such as from decreased agricultural productivity and more frequent severe weather events) from 50 years of climate change....
Published in JAMA (October 12, 2020):
