Covid-19, trust and rising economic challenges in the Arab world
There is a common view that managing Covid-19 is all about making a trade-off between lives and livelihoods. But as this column explains, comparing global performance, countries have tended to do well, or not, on both health and economics simultaneously. A key correlate of successful country performance is a high level of trust in government, which makes compliance with public health and social measures more efficient – and therefore minimises economic casualty.
Killer lockdowns
Most developed countries have responded to the Covid-19 crisis by imposing lockdowns to control the spread of infections rather than taking the ‘herd immunity’ approach that some have advocated. This column argues that poor countries should not necessarily mimic this response: for them, the risks of the herd immunity approach can be dwarfed by the risks of starvation, destitution, instability and violence arising from a prolonged lockdown.