{
  "title": "Pandemic Lessons",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/12/pandemic-lessons-peter-sands",
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  "summary": "The Global Fund’s Peter Sands believes that economists should pay more attention to global health",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Economists' blind spot on pandemics",
      "content": "- COVID-19 exposed that pandemics pose significant macroeconomic costs and were not given due attention by economists and financial institutions.\n- Evidence cited by Peter Sands:\n  - He identified \"15 countries that had suffered infectious disease outbreaks\" and reviewed country reports.\n  - Outbreaks were \"mentioned in 63 percent of the IMF reports published afterwards, not a single report published before an outbreak highlighted the risk.\"\n  - Reports reviewed covered \"two years prior and two years after those outbreaks.\"\n- Causes of the blind spot:\n  - Difficulty estimating \"low-probability, high-impact events.\"\n  - Specialists in health and economics \"can’t speak each other’s language,\" creating a chasm of understanding.\n  - Institutions like the IMF \"didn't feel comfortable with issues related to epidemiology\" and therefore did not look at those risks."
    },
    {
      "heading": "IMF's comparative advantage and recommended approach",
      "content": "- The IMF can assess a country's vulnerability to outbreaks and its economic impact much as it assesses other macrocritical challenges (for example, \"liquidity shocks\").\n- The IMF should:\n  - Draw on epidemiological expertise from others for the health side.\n  - Use its core skills to examine \"how an outbreak could affect the economy.\"\n- Sands' view on institutional learning:\n  - \"If large institutions like the Fund haven’t worked out that infectious diseases can have massive macroeconomic and financial effects because of COVID-19, I don’t know what will convince them.\"\n  - The pandemic is \"even bigger than the global financial crisis\" in macroeconomic and financial impact."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Global Fund response, priorities, and scale-up",
      "content": "- The Global Fund rapidly deployed resources in response to COVID-19:\n  - \"We responded to the COVID-19 crisis very quickly, making money available in March 2020.\"\n  - \"Since then, we’ve deployed about $4 billion.\"\n  - The Global Fund has been \"the primary provider of support to low- and middle-income countries for non-vaccine health elements, such as testing, PPE [personal protective equipment], and oxygen.\"\n- Near-term priorities and strategy:\n  - \"To beat the pandemic, it is necessary to go bigger and faster.\"\n  - Avoid a \"lopsided response\"; vaccines are \"our most potent weapon, but vaccines alone will not defeat COVID.\"\n  - Adopt a \"more comprehensive response that encompasses a wider range of elements.\"\n  - Emphasize speed: \"The logic of fighting infectious diseases is to hit them fast because there’s a nonlinear impact both on beating them and if you let them run rampant.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "Impact of COVID-19 on other major diseases",
      "content": "- COVID-19's effect on HIV, TB, and malaria:\n  - COVID-19 is characterized as \"the worst thing that ever happened to the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria.\"\n  - The Global Fund's 2020 results report showed that \"for the first time in our 20-year history, there were reverses in key results across all three diseases.\"\n  - Context: \"The Global Fund was set up to fight the last big pandemic, HIV/AIDS, which killed nearly 40 million people.\"\n  - In most low- and low-middle-income countries, \"HIV, TB, and malaria kill more people than COVID.\"\n- Policy implication: responses must address both \"the direct impact of COVID and its knock-on impact on these other diseases.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "Innovation, urgency, and end-to-end perspectives",
      "content": "- Innovation timelines and expectations:\n  - COVID-19 \"broke previous assumptions about how long it takes to develop responses such as rapid diagnostic tests and vaccines.\"\n  - The approval of the malaria vaccine RTS,S \"took years,\" and the Global Fund contributed funds to its development.\n  - There is discussion in the TB field about \"the possibility of a vaccine in four to five years.\"\n  - Sands questions why a one-year vaccine development (for a novel virus) should not reset expectations: \"If we can develop a vaccine in just a year for a virus we’d never seen before, why are we excited about waiting four to five years for a vaccine for a disease we’ve had for hundreds of years?\"\n- Operational lessons:\n  - Value an \"end-to-end perspective,\" aligning those \"involved in the deployment of new medical tools\" with those \"developing and launching them.\"\n  - Translate pandemic-era speed into responses for other diseases: \"As a banker, I heard people say, 'time is money.' In the global health world, time is life.\"\n  - Protect people \"from a whole slew of pathogens\" to avoid saving someone from COVID-19 only for them \"to die of TB.\"\n\nF&D Magazine interview with Peter Sands, December 2021.\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- الجائحة والدروس المُستفادة\n  - الجائحة والدروس المُستفادة (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - الجائحة والدروس المُستفادة (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Lecciones de la pandemia ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2021\n  - Lecciones de la pandemia ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2021 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Lecciones de la pandemia ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2021 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Enseignements de la pandémie\n  - Enseignements de la pandémie (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Enseignements de la pandémie (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Питер Сэндс: Уроки пандемии\n  - Питер Сэндс: Уроки пандемии (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Питер Сэндс: Уроки пандемии (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Pandemic Lessons\n  - Pandemic Lessons (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Pandemic Lessons (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 新冠疫情带给我们的启示 ● 《金融与发展》● 2021年12月号\n  - 新冠疫情带给我们的启示 ● 《金融与发展》● 2021年12月号 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 新冠疫情带给我们的启示 ● 《金融与发展》● 2021年12月号 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/12/pandemic-lessons-peter-sands"
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    "Authors: RUCHIR AGARWAL",
    "Published: December 2, 2021",
    "COVID-19 exposed that pandemics pose significant macroeconomic costs and were not given due attention by economists and financial institutions.",
    "Evidence cited by Peter Sands:",
    "Causes of the blind spot:",
    "The IMF can assess a country's vulnerability to outbreaks and its economic impact much as it assesses other macrocritical challenges (for example, \"liquidity shocks\").",
    "The IMF should:",
    "Sands' view on institutional learning:",
    "The Global Fund rapidly deployed resources in response to COVID-19:",
    "Near-term priorities and strategy:",
    "COVID-19's effect on HIV, TB, and malaria:",
    "Policy implication: responses must address both \"the direct impact of COVID and its knock-on impact on these other diseases.\"",
    "Innovation timelines and expectations:",
    "Operational lessons:",
    "**الجائحة والدروس المُستفادة**",
    "**Lecciones de la pandemia ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2021**",
    "**Enseignements de la pandémie**",
    "**Питер Сэндс: Уроки пандемии**",
    "**Pandemic Lessons**",
    "**新冠疫情带给我们的启示 ● 《金融与发展》● 2021年12月号**"
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