Staff Discussion Notes

A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Ruchir Agarwal, Gita Gopinath

May 19, 2021

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Ruchir Agarwal, and Gita Gopinath. A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2021) accessed November 21, 2024

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Disclaimer: This Staff Discussion Note represents the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent IMF views or IMF policy. The views expressed herein should be attributed to the authors and not to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management. Staff Discussion Notes are published to elicit comments and to further debate.

Summary

Urgent steps are needed to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain from the COVID-19 pandemic that are exacerbating already-diverging recoveries. Pandemic policy is also economic policy as there is no durable end to the economic crisis without an end to the health crisis. Building on existing initiatives, this paper proposes pragmatic actions at the national and multilateral level to expeditiously defeat the pandemic. The proposal targets: (1) vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022, (2) tracking and insuring against downside risks, and (3) ensuring widespread testing and tracing, maintaining adequate stocks of therapeutics, and enforcing public health measures in places where vaccine coverage is low. The benefits of such measures at about $9 trillion far outweigh the costs which are estimated to be around $50 billion—of which $35 billion should be paid by grants from donors and the residual by national governments potentially with the support of concessional financing from bilateral and multilateral agencies. The grant funding gap identified by the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator amounts to about $22 billion, which the G20 recognizes as important to address. This leaves an estimated $13 billion in additional grant contributions needed to finance our proposal. Importantly, the strategy requires global cooperation to secure upfront financing, upfront vaccine donations, and at-risk investment to insure against downside risks for the world.

Subject: Economic sectors, Financial crises

Keywords: COVID-19, Economic crisis, Pandemic

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    53

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

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  • Series:

    Staff Discussion Notes No. 2021/004

  • Stock No:

    SDNEA2021004

  • ISBN:

    9781513577609

  • ISSN:

    2617-6750