Topic: Economy over health (Read 383 times)

And aside from that, people should do their part also in combatting the continuous spread of the virus.
As much as possible, they should follow strictly the health protocols prescribed by the govt such as social distancing and use of face mask/face shield.
A lot of governments are in desperate move to open again the economy because many people are already suffering from the closure of businesses.
We can support our government by following their health protocols and as much as possible go outside only when necessary.

If their economic analysts find it very worthy that sacrificing the people's healths for growth on the economy, then there's nothing wrong with that. Yes, they have a lot of COVID-19 confirmed cases on their country but it shouldn't be a reason to stop their means of growing their country which is the tourist attraction.

Cases - 37,292
Recovered - 13,471
Deaths - 397

Maybe they're also confident in their health care system for prioritizing the economy over health because based on the chart, comparing to our country, it's still better. Also, some of the data here in my country are said to be fake so those recovery counts aren't true and that's the reason why we shouldn't open our borders to other countries.

In the current situation in the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is very difficult to simultaneously maintain the level of the economy and people's health. The coronavirus spreads very quickly if people have constant contact with each other, but if people do not contact and, accordingly, do not work, then what kind of economy can we talk about. But not everything is so simple, because today I have more than once noticed the fact that large enterprises work because they bring profit to billionaires, and ordinary businessmen do not have the right to open their own store or cafe in order to receive at least some profit ... At the same time, people work in large industries without adhering to basic safety rules in a pandemic. Thus, not the economy, but the income of rich people is more important than the health of ordinary people.

It's not just this country, it's pretty much every country in the world taking risks in order to save the economy. In my country we are experiencing record high numbers or new daily cases, deaths and hospitalizations (a few times a week new record beat the previous ones), but cinemas are open, beaches and restaurants are open, all kids are about to go to schools (as a school teacher, I'm especially worried about this one), and the public transport is overcrowded with safety measures systematically ignored. The problem is, it's hard to determine what is worse for the well-being of people. So it's not purely a profit-oriented cold-blooded approach. Yes, some will die from COVID-19, and these people would not have got infected under lockdown in the first place. However, if kids stay at home, the poorest people will suffer most because they'll either have to pay someone to stay with kids or one parent would have to stay home with a child (which is significant losses in family budget in both cases). And struggling to make a living is also a big problem. That being said, I think many people could stay home (teachers of many subjects can teach online just fine, and office workers could work from home, thus both earning and sitting with kids). But all this requires a lot of planning and would be difficult to fully implement. So as a result, I'm expecting the spring of Italy in the autumn of Ukraine, but I somewhat understand why the world is choosing this approach.

There are great concerns that the Corona pandemic and the resulting recession will lead to the first increase in the global poverty rate in three decades. As we face an uncertain future after the Coronavirus, policymakers in the world must do something to counteract the economic implications of the pandemic. If people do not die from disease, they will starve to death.

I think the total lockdown was an extreme measure, probably without good research, and the weighing of the advantages/disadvantages.

I'd suggest that the good safety/preventative measures be followed while people are allowed to go to work. I find things like avoiding crowded places, using the face protections/masks, eating healthy, handwashing, outdoor gatherings, etc as sensible preventative/safety measures. But you have to do/apply this things rightly so they don't look meaningless.
Not everyone needs these ^ measures though, but for the sake of those who need them, we could all use or do them.

Because that brings a huge impact to the economy that's why it is the only thing that some of the governments are doing even if it is risky. That's why spreading of virus from countries to countries is still there. As soon as possible, if it is not that urgent and necessary, stay at your home and avoid travelling from one place to another.

If authorities are strict about implementing 14 day self-quarantine and people are responsible with that, then it is not the problem.

But governments just doing their thing, they don't want the state's economy to crash and affect its citizens. It also want its people to have a healthy living, while they are doing risky things so they can somehow support its citizens.

You see these global pandemics are not new. It happened or I mean similar incidents like covid-19 happened in the past. That surely took many souls but couldn't stop the humans to advance further. 😁

Here in my country the same thing, they have implemented the quarantine for the first time, but the economy has deteriorated significantly and people have become unemployed and upset about this bad situation, so the government has canceled the quarantine and I do not think that they will apply it again despite the increasing spread of the virus on a daily basis.
As for Costa Rica, this is a completely irresponsible and ill-considered step by the government, if the infection is transmitted by tourists from America, this could cause a disaster in the country because of these large numbers and I think that people there are never happy with this decision and prefer health over economy.

This is one big challenge that the government is facing nowadays. It's really hard to balance both economy and health. Most of the governments around the world are prefereing economy over health, especially here in the Philippines.

During our 2 month lockdown, more establishments have closed and the government funds quickly depleted despite donations from other countries. Right now, the government admitted that they cannot afford anymore to implement full lockdown for the entire country. However, frontliners are also depleting because they got infected too. They are tired right now, and the number of hospitals are not enough.

Because the government needs the economy to recover, taxes are collected and to be used to aid us once again for the pandemic. I just simply don't like the incompetence of our national government.

The very reason why they needed to make a hard decision like this, either way there's consequences that
the government needed to address, they need to take their stand.


No in between but to continue surviving facing this pandemic, they have to make a clear decision making
to address the virus and the needs of the people.


Correct proper protocol to avoid making more infected and to lessen the spread of this virus.

Actually there is no country that can contain this virus in a year unless there will be a vaccine available. Definitely, we are talking about years in a pandemic and there is no country that can stand with themselves economically facing the pandemic with strict lockdown protocols.

I see now that each country are making some amendments from normal to the "new normal" stuff, but things like taxes won't be change in fact they are looking for its extra sources to replace the productiveness of unemployed workers temporarily. Our country will be opening flights again starting next month, our tourism will be open too partially, guidelines will be implemented strictly and social distancing will be practiced.

We cannot defy governments doing ambiguous decisions specially that most countries now can’t feed their people anymore. Though its a hard situation to open establishments for operations but they don’t have any choice, what is happening now is fighting the pandemic and at the same time reviving the economies. Its the new normal, live with the virus but with the proper protocol.

Its not just America that is suffering because of the Pandemic but most of Asian countries that have bad healthcare system damaged the economy as a whole. The Indonesia and Philippines which are both currently in deep debt from other countries. The government officials did not have any concrete plan to fend or mitigate the damage done to the economy and health of their people. It would really be hard to recover from that UNLESS they create drastic measures in which that they prioritize the health of their people because having people work can boost up the economy.

Unfortunately economy IS health, if you cripple the economy to a point that nobody works and everyone is at home, people who can work from home do work from home but all the other jobs and business' that can't work from home, such as cafe or restaurant or dry cleaner or MANY other stuff that has to get out of the house to work, would really go bankrupt, if they have some savings account at the side they could barely survive but at that point they are eating away from their years long savings as well.

This means they will be stressed out and some would be basically unemployed and with no income and that would cause them to lose any chance of getting any medical need as well. All these come down to their health going down constantly because you can't be in this much trouble and still have your health up.

Virus are unstoppable once the government and its people are underestimating its ability to kill people and spread immediately.

That's why government are still having a hard time to recover, they can't reopen businesses, transactions, and travelling of goods due to the risk of Covid-19. But if the thing is really necessary, they should do it carefully while following precautionary measures. I know that life is hard if we live like this, but I want you to understand that this is just temporary. We will surely go back to normal and we will surpass this trials.

Just prioritize your health before anything else.

+1 to all you said. Opening intracountry businesses imo isn't bad, the home government can ensure strict compliance to social distancing and other covid-19 preventive measures. Tourism (travelling to other countries) is the major way this virus touched almost all nations in the world, tourism should be the last thing that should open as the lockdown is eased gradually.

There's also a different between opening the borders for essential matters/businesses and the number of people who travel in will be cut down, but tourism brings in quite a lot of people and these tourists will always wish to stay for a longer period of time, imo, Costa Rica can only hope this doesn't bring a wave of the virus with it.

As I said in the view of government health is not more important compared to economy, even they are not going to worry if thousands of people died because it lower their burden and gives opportunities for the unemployed one.It may look like too harsh but in this politics these things are happening in reality.

I do not agree with those who are opening their border for tourism. Most probably Costa Rica took a wrong decision and they would regret that in near future. It's better "stay safe than sorry", who knows if in case spread the viruses once again then it will be very difficult to control. I like those countries just open basic needs organizations. The economy should recover slowly, it wouldn't recover suddenly. A wrong decision would lead to more losses.

It is very clear that by the way the economies of the world are run that there was no way to maintain the lockdown for a very long time, as soon as governments realized that the virus was not as lethal as they thought it was they had been deciding that the best thing for them is to open the economy, and quite honestly many people want the same, because just as much as the government was not ready to deal with this pandemic people were not ready either and they prioritize their economic well being over their health.

I think we are at the point that we can't afford to shut down much longer, or have any sort of "full on" shut downs.  I'm from the United States and the initial shut down was detrimental for our economy which of course trickles out in to other avenues, making millions homeless, jobless etc.  I'm all for practicing safe measures, I wear a mask wherever I go, I practice social distancing but I also go to my gym thats not open, I think we need to continue on with normal life as best as possible.  There's a fine line between which to lean but I think leaning in the middle makes the most sense in the end. Just my 2 satoshis.

It is wrong to prioritize the economy over health. So what Costa Rica is doing in my opinion is too risky, moreover let tourist
from America arrive. As we all know the spread of COVID-19 in America is still the highest until now. There are still many ways
to improve the economy, not necessarily by allowing tourists from various countries to come to Costa Rica.

Every government had reacted differently to the same dilemma they experience. Costa Rica chose to revive their tourism for they see they could benefit from it after all even with this COVID19 there are still people roaming around.

Why should they chose just one when they can choose both reviving the economy and at the same time have a strict mandate to prevent the spread of COVID.

Same thing in my country, the government is opening up some sectors of the economy, everything is opening up slowly.

When the lockdown started at first because of the Coronavirus the government said they were going to support the people, but they were not able to do that, and people started complaining that if the lockdown should carry on they are going to die of hunger, some of them even started sneaking out from their houses lol.

The government had no other choice than to stop the lockdown and allow people to start going out again. And of course the economy was affected due to the lockdown, but things seems to be going back to normal.

Everyone emphasizes casualties inflicted by corona virus.

The neglected inverse angle could be one where we attempt to estimate the number of casualties inflicted by economic shutdown. Then compare the two statistics to guessestimate whether quarantine is saving lives or having an overall opposite effect.

It is known that economic crisis (and perhaps economic shutdown) greatly increases statistics relating to suicide, violence, crime, drug overdoses and other negatives. There were news stories published months ago claiming more were dying from suicide associated with lockdown, than were dying from the actual virus.

The economy will have a very bad effect on health because many people have become unemployed due to the disruption of the economy and that is hurting them emotionally. In this case, they are losing their mental balance which is affecting their health. Industrial enterprises have suffered because labour wages depend on marginal productivity which is regulated by good health. But the existing public health system does not reach the door of the poor. Growth enthusiasts are frustrated that the growth rate may be much lower this time around.

I think that is obvious that they will be having a hard time supporting the country with long lockdowns.

As people are restricted to go to their jobs, just imagine lower taxes going in the government, that means they will be having a limited money to use. They will be having a hard time making projects because they will be focussed on supporting these people that are stucked in their houses. That would really empty the taxes bag..

There are a lot of places and the country today are having trouble with their economy because they are suffering from this pandemic outbreak and one of the best things we should do is to open some business or the whole economy even there is a virus spreading.

Some people don't want too because they are afraid it looks like they are sacrificing their lives just to earn money instead of keeping safe but we cannot deny some people don't have enough money so they risk their lives on it.

It looks like you will choose either you will suffer from hunger because of COVID or risk your life to go to your job.

Its really a dilemma for most countries because a lot of countries cannot afford to be on shutdown for a long time because of their own economy. The issue is that if the country didn't open up, hunger would kill alot of people even more than the corona virus impact couple with the civil unrest, the looting, challenges with security among any other social vices that could come along the continuous lock down of the economy. So, its not that country leaders care more about the health of their own selfish needs but because when they are faced with two impossible situations, they went with the easier one while they manager the other.

they dont totally stop people from working but only few are removed but now that the situation is more better than compare to when the start of the covid , they are slowly recruiting people again or hire people that that is destined to take a rest before .

 i dont also believed that governments are gonna get poor if they continue lockdowns but i think they have a good wealth reserve for this kind of situation  . this is better than they spend money on others 

Health should really come first, but that also leads to a problem.

If they will be making the lockdowns longer, that means they should be able to take care of the people that can't go to their jobs. They would focus their finance in health and without money coming in, that would be bad. I am not against this decision as long as they are strictly implementing the protocols to be followed.

Costa Rica or indeed any country opening for international tourists is obviously a risk, but as the thread title indicates, this isn't just tourism, it is the balance that governments are striking between the economy and the health of its population. But this is what it has been about everywhere, from the beginning. We saw most countries implement lockdowns far too late, because they valued the economy over health... a stupid gamble, repeated around the world, as a swift lockdown/quarantining of people coming into the country would have meant small initial economic damage, but then no nationwide lockdown. The economic hit would have been much smaller if governments had been willing to take that small amount of damage. But they weren't, we saw over and over again that governments waited until it was too late, and then had to implement full lockdown across the country and suffered huge economic damage as a result. I think this exposes the incompetence of politicians. With a cycle of elections every few years, politicians have an entirely short-term view... and that's what hit them here. They waited until it was too late, because they didn't want to look further ahead and see what effects their inaction might have.

Some nations have learned the lessons better than others. As for whether opening for tourism is an acceptable risk... it depends largely on how it is managed. But given governments' recent records, I wouldn't be surprised to see a second wave of the pandemic.

AFAIK, other countries are now allowing international flights while implementing restrictions. They can't really close international flights because it's one of the factors that's helping the economy. During the first few weeks/months of COVID, a lot of countries imposed restrictions on flights but they can't really do that for a long time.

It's a risk, but it's still okay as long as they are following protocols like if you travel from another country, you need to self-quarantine for 14 days before going out and that's what other countries are doing.

Whether our government will come that far due to desperation or not, it will surely make the situation even worse so I think it is not a good move. It is like having temporary relief with disastrous drawbacks . Thus, looking forward on our tourism should not be focused right now. I would agree if we are only talking about importing/exporting goods since you can assure that they are all clear once disinfected unlike to the risk could bring by a positive person (especially those asymptomatic). This will only add to the burden of our healthcare workers as contact tracing is difficult to execute.

Actually there's a simple logic there, we all know that corona virus is contagious so we must eliminate the possible carriers as much as possible. That's it. I know it is easy to say but hard to do. But we can't simply ignore science, finding an alternative solution for sustaining our economy is the best thing we can do.

In fact, this strategy is the wisest strategy up to now. The corona virus is thought to be man-made and its purpose is to harm the economies of the country. If the virus is still alive and spreading, the economy will increasingly weaken, people are always in a state of fear and dare not spend. Instead of always letting that happen in the long term, we should put it out in the short term. Agree that the economy will suffer badly during the lockdown but if left to long then we will lose more. 

Not a wise move. Governments are basically giving up on ways to actually achieve a balance where people's health is guaranteed while the economy is able to survive, even at the bare minimum. They tried some moves as shown in the past months that has happened, but nothing really effective was able to pop up, so they probably just gave up and are now opting to stimulate the economy instead of prioritizing health, since they can probably just make the excuse of it's the individuals responsibility whether he/she should risk their health in exchange for their desires.

The same situation could be said here in our country tbh, we went under a strict quarantine period but still a bit lax compared to the first quarantine period back in March for 14 days, but really, there wasn't any improvement in terms of how the infections went up, and now the President just decided to go back to the period where businesses open up again with his reasoning being to stimulate the Economy.

Health should comes first before anything else hence it's the best way to stop and deal with pandemic so that the spread will be minimized, implementing safety protocols to all citizens would be a wise decisions. The economy can recover no matter what happens and the solutions of this is to wait for the vaccine to come out and should be available later this year and then economy can rise back again without endangering the health of the citizens.

This does not sound wise to me. Although there should be no such thing as economy over health or health over economy as there should be a balance, at times the other one is far more stretched than the other. And this case right here is one perfect example.

Is there no other way to intervene to the falling tourism industry of the country amidst the pandemic? Is this the only option left to help those who are at the worst end of this tourism crisis? Can the government not think of other not-so-risky ways to temporarily give livelihood to the victims of the falling industry? After all, this is not going to last forever.

I'm just hoping this is not another case of policy-makers up there making ungrounded decisions. This has always been a tendency with so many leaders; making plans, crafting and implementing policies, for the sake of the economy or whatnot without putting into consideration the real sentiments of the people.

The government better ask first the stakeholders themselves if they are agreeable to this risky reopening of tourist attractions to Americans. And if they do, they should put mechanisms that would protect their citizens from possible carriers of virus from foreign countries. Health and economy, after all, are of equal priority.

That's why it's hard to let go of that just to fully secure people from covid-19, and besides they already have over 35k confirmed cases per report, so they are already fighting against the virus and they know how to handle it.

https://www.coronatracker.com/country/costa-rica/


Don't think that they will not ensure the safety of their people, they would open the tourism but they will ensure people with covid-19 won't be allowed to travel. US  and Costa Rica will both make a protocol against covid-19 so I guess it's not that worst as we are expecting to happen, in the end, the economy needs to survive while it's undeniable that some may suffer but it's the job of the government to protect the interest of the people, meaning the majority of people.

As per Wikipedia, Costa Rica's tourism contribution to GDP is about 5.8% and that's roughly $1.9B yearly.
I don't know but I'm also confused is it really worthy to put their health at risk to revive the economy through tourism, which I also doubt a lot of tourist will risk their health to visit different countries at this dire situation.
I think it is during this time that governments from around the globe needs to invest and improve the Agricultural aspects that could feed the entire country during this time of pandemic.

Im not really against into these kind of decisions yet we know that no country would be able to sustain for long if they would just simply sit and do make some lockdown for too long.

Just like here on my place or country where services had already been opened up but of course they do follow strict health protocols to avoid severe widespread of the virus.

Government are pretty much aware that they can be sued out in case the situation comes worst and such decision doesnt only solely imply that they do only care for revenues and not into its
citizens health but to imagine on what would happen if the certain economy drops so bad?

You can't solve that fully but at least you can minimize the problem by giving people a job for them to buy their basic needs particularly food.
Besides this world is not perfect, there are still people who are unfortunate but at least majority will have  a good life.


Your explanation is weird, you seem to be saying the similar.

~ There should be no law since crime is still committed, or we should not live because we will still die.  

The pandemic recovery is not getting any better at all, if they don't any thing right now it will be the problem in the long run along with the pandemic. you can't just reason out that Health is Wealth, of course anyone wants to be healthy but the thing is the world is struggling in every aspect, economically, medical, etc. And don't think that tourists will be just that dumb to not do a social distance, who wants to be infected or to infect anyway?
What I see from Costa Rica is that they are opening a possibility of recovery for opening the tourism, they can't do things on their own after closing their borders.

Hunger is already a problem since the world has began, yet we cannot solve it. There will be hungry people with or without the pandemic.
Now tell me if help for food can easily come.

As if we never know how to do the right protocol to prevent from being infected.

Yes, they open the boarder for gain tourist because they needed this to recover from the damage cause by pandemic. If you look at other countries especially not the rich countries, they are opening their economy despite of the pandemic because no one can ascertain when this pandemic will be over but people have to live and they can't allow people to die in hunger and not all the time the government can give support to people who lose their job to feed their families.

On the contrary , I heard health is wealth. I think that should me you don't trade your health for wealth. If Costa rica or any other country expose their citizens health because of money to revive the economy, I don't think is a very wise decision. Bad health can kill so much than hunger and with hunger, help for food can easily come.

these numbers say tourism represents 5.1% or 5.8% of GDP depending on how it's calculated, so it's nothing to sneeze at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Costa_Rica#Tourism

a 5%+ annualized GDP contraction would be brutal. that's hundreds of thousands of jobs evaporated, plus hundreds of thousands more that are indirectly supported by tourism.

the losses may also be disproportionately distributed, badly affecting tourist locales while leaving manufacturing and agricultural areas mostly unaffected. this could factor into the decision too.

It is impossible to stop the spreading virus, if they closed borders in the Jan itself then it could be a right decision but closing the borders doesn't make sense when they need funds to help their revival of economy which is more important that health to be honest in the view of government.So if people don't want to lose their lives then they have to stop doing such activities.

Costa Rica gdp contributions from tourism look to be around a mere 2.6%. I think new Zealand stood at around 5% and the UK is about 10% so I don't think it's a lot for their economy to deal with. But even that small percentage will likely be noticeable by them if they didn't do it and it might be one of their highest international investment sources too - or they're trying to grow tourism.

If you don't have a booming economy and you're running on a capitalist system then you have to deal with either a lot of your population not being able to afford basic necessities and/or death of citizens either by suicide or the newfound poverty (though they do have a lot of farmland).

The uks epidemic started in London and that was mainly due to the number of tourists there and potentially the international trading and business dealing that goes down there (if it does). They were about 3 weeks ahead of the UK in the initial propagation of the virus too and had their peek a few weeks earlier

The economy was shut earlier this year to accommodate efforts in tracing cases of corona virus and to stop the rapid spread, but from the news I'm about to share, I do not think any sort of wave or spread of the virus can shut down the economy again. Costa Rica as a country is a tourist attraction to people from different parts of the world, but majorly from the U.S., and that's to say the U.S. dollars plays a very important role in the Costa Rican economy.
Despite the United States of America having more than five million confirmed Corona virus cases, Costa Rica is opening it's borders to American tourists and to make things sound good, only Americans from six states:
Mind you this five states combined have had a total of about 694,765 confirmed cases of covid-19, which is about 20 times higher than the number of cases in Costa Rica. So it's obvious this is a move made to stimulate the Costa Rican economy, and can be said to be at the expense of health. This is very risky from the Costa Rican government and it'll cause huge backlash if it leads to a wide spread of covid-19 in their territory, as of course they will put the blame on this decision.

Another thing to note is how important a role they (Costa Rica) are playing in trying to revive their economy, do you think other nations will also follow suit and take risky measures like this one to generate funds needed for the fast recovery of the economy. Some people, in my country for example have been calling for fresh total lockdowns to be imposed as the only option to defeat the virus completely, I don't think any government can take that step again, what do you think?
Read the full news, it's a good read: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/25/costa-rica-is-allowing-american-tourists-from-six-us-states.html