SA researchers say lockdown ‘nearly 30 times more deadly’ than disease
A startling claim has been made a team of data analysts and actuaries in South Africa, suggesting that a prolonged period of lockdown could cause more death in this country than the current global health crisis. Pandemic ~ Data Analysis, otherwise known as PANDA, released their eye-catching figures on Tuesday.
President alerted to lockdown dangers
Their data model looks at a metric known as Years of Lives Lost (YLL). Nick Hudson, an Actuary and CEO at Sana Partners, and Peter Castleden – Actuary and Fellow Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA) – have both been at the forefront of the project, which suggests that a shuddering economic halt could be the real killer. Their letter alerting the presidency to these conclusions has already been sent:
“We present our data and analysis to you with an urgent appeal: to revise the current approach to lockdown. Using commercially tested actuarial principles, we have been able to estimate the impact of the lockdown’s economic contraction on South Africans’ mortality, or the ‘life-years lost’.”
“This equates to three orders of magnitude higher than the life-years that could plausibly be saved by the lockdown. The data also takes into account the reduction of life expectancy as a result of the economic damage and/or hardships caused by the lockdown, on the same set of demographics in society.”
Nick Hudson, Peter Castleden of PANDA
How deadly is a strict lockdown?
By comparing the data models of both the lockdown and the killer illness, PANDA has concluded that implementing these civil limitations may work well at first, but allowing them to continue for months does more harm than good. Their numbers suggest that lockdown has the potential to kill 30 times more people than the “invisible enemy” we’re currently facing:
“Our latest estimate is that South Africa’s lockdown will cause a loss of life at least 29 times greater than the loss of life it stands to prevent. It would be no exaggeration to say that each week of continuing lockdown will, in the long run, result in more loss of life than the disease itself.”
“In the face of this, economically restrictive lockdown measures should be discontinued immediately. Reduced income has long been known to cause a material decrease in life expectancy. The temporary and permanent aspects of the lockdown contraction have an impact on the ability of millions to make a living.”
Nick Hudson, Peter Castleden of PANDA
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