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"Most people had assumed there would be a trade-off between health and the economy; that if you imposed restrictions to limit the virus's spread and keep deaths down, your economy would be hurt -- and the tougher the restrictions the worse for the economy."

"But not so. Countries that imposed restrictions early and severely, keeping deaths per million low, also had a low decline in GDP."

"By contrast, countries that applied restrictions haphazardly, letting deaths reach high levels while hoping to protect jobs, had among the biggest declines in GDP."

"It turns out the best economic policy was successful aggressive action to limit COVID's spread."

George Fallis, professor emeritus, economics and social science, York University, Toronto

Sweden had decided on the advice of their chief medical officer of health, not to impose  restrictions on its population, hazarding the belief that Swedes would behave sensibly, following basic guidelines of a level of social distancing and protective hygiene. Swedes for the most part, acted accordingly, and voluntarily limited activities while they went about their normal lives and trusted that their government's reliance in their population's good sense would lead to a better outcome than that of their neighbours who had gone in the opposite direction; lockdowns.

 

People walk near a trash can with a sign reading “The danger is not over — Keep your distance” in Uppsala, Sweden, in October. Photo by TT News Agency/Claudio Bresciani via Retuers files

The lack of formal restrictions in Sweden led to a large number of deaths early on, and the situation        failed to improve as time wore on. Swedish politicians were determined to forge ahead with no restrictions on trade and business; the idea was to proceed as normal; perhaps not taking into account in their deliberations that with their largest trading partners -- their neighbouring states -- closed down, the faltering economy that hit their neighbours would also impact on them. In the end, they gained nothing and lost more lives than did their neighbours.

 

High-income advanced economies with reliable health-care systems represented by 20 OECD countries came out of their ordeal with the global pandemic with mixed results. Using Canada as an example, its government faltered in initial decision-making, fluctuating between cautious instructions to its population, to eventual lockdown after downplaying the emerging seriousness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The federal government's attitude toward securing its borders was lax, it denied the usefulness of mask-wearing, instead championing testing, tracing and isolating.

 

Pedestrians in downtown Toronto during the start of the city's second lockdown in November. Photo by Cole Burston/Bloomberg files

But even these practices were poorly executed in comparison to the take-up rate of their counterpart nations in other OECD countries. One thing all countries had in common, however, despite their modern, technically advanced economies and excellent health-care systems, was unpreparedness. Along with a critical lack of PPE and other related hospital-medical equipment. This, despite more than ample warning that just such a threat as a global pandemic hovered on the near horizon. This, despite that SARS-1 had proven itself to be a deadly virus the world handled poorly, offering a lesson in the necessity of proactive preparation.

 

The first entry of the novel coronavirus took the world by surprise as it swept through the globe following its initial emergence in Wuhan, China. Which Beijing initially played down, giving inadequate and incorrect information to the WHO, delaying the declaration of a pandemic. The world looked on, fascinated and disbelieving as China then took draconian measures to cope with a dread new virus with the intention of isolating the infection and stopping its spread. Despite which COVID appeared to experience little trouble escaping the boundaries set up to contain it as it spread virulently.

 

When the winter of 2020 merged into spring, it began to appear as though much of the world had succeeded in controlling the spread of COVID, and restrictions that were imposed were relaxed while the number of cases dwindled and a sense of optimism prevailed. Until the Northern Hemisphere entered fall, then winter and the fearsome second wave of infection re-entered. Monetary stimulus, support for businesses and workers were activated by governments even as GDP shrank and the death count rose. 

Some countries had moved expeditiously and severely to limit the first wave while others struggled to contain that huge entry of infections, with mixed results. South Korea as an example experienced a mere 4.4 percent decline in GDP, with eight deaths per million population, while the U.K. took a 21.8 percent decline in GDP, and suffered 595 deaths per million. It was soon realized that those countries with the largest GDP decline experienced a larger bounceback with the mid-year decline of COVID infections.

Austria Denmark, Finland, Germany, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland experienced a smallish decline in GDP and a lower death rate per million, while Belgium, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom were hit much harder in both metrics. On the other hand other countries came off better in one metric and worse on another; France, Ireland,Netherlands, Japan, Sweden and the United States. Among these countries many committed errors in judgement, now facing a larger second wave of cases.

European countries -- in particular those that performed poorly during the first wave and lockdowns, have faced distinctly high daily death rates due to COVID-19. Severe lockdowns were re-instituted by early November and in some countries daily deaths are on the decline, while others remain struggling with ongoing high death counts. Austria, Belgium and Switzerland's death rates have been horrifically high. But it is in the United States where throughout the nine months of the coronavirus onslaught its spread was never brought under control, resulting in ongoing daily death rise surpassing levels seen in the first wave.

Those countries that realized partial successes in controlling the coronavirus are continuing to perform well at present, including South Korea, Japan, Norway, Finland and Denmark, where death rates have been kept at a relatively low rate. Australia and New Zealand are stand-outs for their success in avoiding a second wave entirely. What has been proven to be highly successful is a protocol of strict lockdowns maintained until low levels of cases are realized, then held there with tighter border controls. Testing-tracing-isolation regimes on a large scale has become a tool of necessity.

 

 

The Future of Baby Busts

  COVID-19 drop in global birth rate  (Teresa Crawford/AP)

"Perhaps in an early phase of the pandemic, people might have also worried how safe it was to seek more medical care during the pandemic and so might have postponed getting pregnant out of concerns for the health of themselves and the baby."

"I think these worries have largely subsided in Canada, and now the biggest factor is whether people think their economic situation is stable enough or promising enough to support a child."

"Think the opposite of the baby boomer. If we see a drop in only one or two years, then the impact overall on the labour market, the financial sustainability of our pension and healthcare system would be limited."

"But if we see a sustained drop, this can lead to a permanent downsizing in the education sector and would have implications for the labour market and public expenditure programs."

Elisabeth Gugl, family economist, associate professor, University of Victoria

"We're more than half a kid short of replacement value."

"The evidence is clear. Birth rates have collapsed. We are pushing against something that is already failing. The patterns were already well-established."

"All of our population growth comes from immigration, which has been choked off [by the exigencies brought to bear through the global pandemic]." 

"You don't even have to look at the statistics, you just have to look at  your own family. Just look at the number of nieces and nephews and grandchildren and compare that to the previous generation."

"Nordic countries are the great test of whether incentives work. And their birth rates are no different than other parts of the world."

Darrell Bricker, CEO, Ipsos Public Affairs, co-author, Empty Planet

"What is interesting about the pandemic is that it's global. If the world is experiencing a reduction in the number of children, and you want to fill that gap with immigration, then you can't offset it with immigration."

"Every system will have its strengths and weaknesses intensified and amplified."

Nora Spinks, CEO, The Vanier Institute of the Family

 

Demographers and policy makers are closely watching numbers on global fertility, already in steep decline even before the pandemic struck. Now that it has it is assured that what is certain about the future of families is a baby bust. Total fertility rate representing the number of children a woman would bring into the world over the course of her reproductive life, had declined to 1.47 births per woman in Canada in 2019, representing the lowest figure ever recorded by Statistics Canada. The number of babies born for the population to replace itself represents the replacement rate.

The Brookings Institution in the United States, a public policy organization, for its part has predicted a "large, lasting baby bust" leading to a decline of 300,000 to 500,000 births in the coming year in the U.S. Woman who are already mothers have suffered a disproportionate impact from the pandemic, facing challenges with child care, compromised by a tough labour market. In Spain, 79 percent of women who had planned having children are now thinking twice about those plans. American women experiencing doubts along the same line in the U.S. stands at 38 percent.

Right across the G20 nations declining fertility rates have been recognized as educational levels for women have risen and these ambitious women launch careers. Women in France gave birth to 2.5 children in the 1970s, but by 2018 the birth rate in France had diminished to 1.8. In the U.S. women had an average of 2.5 children in the '70s, and by 2018 that number had dropped to 1.7, while in Italy the average was 2.4 children in the '70s, dropping to 1.3 by 2018.

 

If fewer babies are born in 2021 as a result of the pandemic, there will be fewer adults to generate the income tax revenues required to support our aging population as they draw on the Canada Pension Plan and use hospital services. (KieferPix/Shutterstock )

 

There may be less of a fertility fall in Canada than will occur in the U.S., believes family economist Elisabeth Gugl, even as she predicts women will postpone their first child and ultimately families will decide on a more limited number of children than they might originally have envisioned pre-pandemic. And there is the reality that the proportion of fertile women in the population is growing smaller and smaller as women hold off longer into their mid-30s and beyond to have children.

The Canadian government saw two-thirds of immigrants failing to arrive in Canada as a result of travel barriers linked to the pandemic, and it has now announced new immigration targets; 401,000 for 2021, 411,000 for 2022, and 423,000 for the following year even while acknowledging that an aging population matched with a low birth rate is the cause of economic and fiscal pressures they hope larger immigration figures will help to ease. Greater numbers in the workforce is required to provide the tax base funding benefits like health care.

Daryl Bricker of Ipsos Public Affairs pricks that balloon, reasonably pointing out that the largest number of migrants derive from India, China and the Philippines countries which themselves are experiencing fertility collapse numbers. Added to which fertility decline is seen as well among immigrant families coming from countries where large families are common. The world over, countries are struggling with ways to convince women to have more children. The same social upheavals where rural dwellers move to urban areas where they are unlikely to have as many children plays out all over the globe.

A gap exists between "fertility aspirations" accounting for the number of children women plan having, and the number they actually deliver, according to a UN working paper on policy responses to low birth rates. "The incompatibility between professional career and family life" steers highly educated women toward delaying motherhood or abandoning it altogether, points out the paper from the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA. As well, the report notes additional factors discouraging women from bearing children; the trend toward "intensive parenting" among them, demanding significant time and investment in children's education and extra-curricular events.

Societies of strong traditional gender role norms according to the UNFPA paper, are seeing very low fertility. Parental leaves are being recognized as a most likely social tool for a positive effect on fertility along with job security. Should a certain proportion of parental leave be allocated to each gender on a "use it or lose it" basis the paper sees a way to convince both parents to share responsibilities. Yet the fact is, there is no "magic bullet" to convince fathers they should be more involved in child care.

A street artist performs with soap bubbles at Rossio square during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in downtown Lisbon, Portugal October 31, 2020. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante/