[MCN] There will be survivors. The economy might not be one of them

[Lance Olsen]

The Economist  March 19, 2020

Paying to stop the pandemic
The struggle to save lives and the economy is likely to present agonising choices

1st 2 paragraphs

Planet earth is shutting down. In the struggle to get a grip on covid-19, one country after another is demanding that its citizens shun society. As that sends economies reeling, desperate governments are trying to tide over companies and consumers by handing out trillions of dollars in aid and loan guarantees. Nobody can be sure how well these rescues will work.

But there is worse. Troubling new findings suggest that stopping the pandemic might require repeated shutdowns. And yet it is also now clear that such a strategy would condemn the world economy to grave—perhaps intolerable—harm. Some very hard choices lie ahead.
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"Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year.”
 
“We do not quantify human deaths per se because the extent of human mortality will be considerably modified by social adaptation (for example, use of air conditioning, early warning systems, and so on (18–20). Although social adaptation could reduce the exposure to deadly heat (18–20), it will not affect the occurrence of such conditions. Given the speed of climatic changes and numerous physiological constraints, it is unlikely that human physiology will evolve the necessary higher heat tolerance (21,22), highlighting that outdoor conditions will remain deadly even if social adaptation is broadly implemented. “
 
Mora et al. Global risk of deadly heat. Nature Climate Change. Published online 19 June 2017
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3322
 

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