T he EU financial aid package was negotiated against a background of a rising fear of a second wave of COVID-19. This fear stems from higher rates of infection registered in countries like Germany and Belgium. To know how to make the most of the deal we got, we must understand the COVID lessons from around the world.
Whether a second wave is occurring or not, however, the fear does affect economic behaviour. Around 60 per cent of Germans have said they will not be taking a holiday abroad this year. This decision is reflected, in my own anecdotal experience, with many other European nationalities: affluent families, used to taking holidays of four at least twice a year, are deciding to travel overland to explore different parts of their own countries.
We don’t need to belabour the consequences of this attitude for airlines and the hospitality industry for small countries like Malta.
We still know too little about COVID-19 to assess the likelihood of a second wave proper. We don’t know if, having caught the virus once, you become immune to it (and, if so, for how long). We don’t really know if the weather affects its contagiousness – and by how much. But although we do not know much from an epidemiological point of view, we have learned a lot about how systems of governance can affect its spread.
First, open societies fare better than authoritarian regimes. Iran’s high rate of infections is partly attributable to mass religious pilgrimages that were not halted by a theocratic regime; in some quarters, it was objectionable to point out the dangers of shrines when, ideologically, shrines were held to promote cures.
European solidarity matters but so do national borders
China’s irreligious but equally authoritarian regime was hostile to clear early information about the virus – not least about human to human transmission. Many Chinese paid with their lives while the consequences for the rest of the world have been catastrophic.
Brazil’s right-wing leader, Jair Bolsonaro, got entangled with public clashes with his health minister, since Bolsonaro insisted on dismissing the threat posed by the virus. The country is suffering the consequences.
Second, however, leadership by itself has not been a decisive factor. Bolsonaro has made things worse for Brazilians – but over the last 20 years Brazil has repeatedly been convulsed by intractable plagues, whatever the nature of the government.
In the US, President Donald Trump has been blamed for his mixed messaging. Some blame is deserved. But one of the highest death rates occurred in the state of New York, firmly under the political control of Trump’s opponents.
It’s unclear if a Democratic president would have performed better than Trump. A Democrat might have insisted more quickly on masks – but probably not have acted as quickly to block flights from China (especially not while the World Health Organisation was still insisting that there was no need for it).
In any case, would a Democrat president have persuaded Republican-controlled states in the South that mask-wearing was essential? It’s more likely that any US president would run into a fundamental constraint: the US is a federal state where it comes to freedom of movement (internal borders cannot be simply shut down to stop people moving in or out of particular states); but it has health systems and policies that vary from state to state.
Contrast that with the EU, where sovereignty over health systems coincides with sufficient sovereignty over borders. Shutdown could take place. Clear policies, tailored to context, could be implemented.
Third, unequal societies have fared worse. In Brazil, the infections may have initially spread from the rich – returning from skiing holidays in Italy – to their servants; who then spread it in their multi-generational households, while lacking access to proper healthcare.
In the US, the poor were hit significantly harder – such as Afro-Americans, who, as a group, tend to have both higher rates of conditions that make COVID-19 more fatal and less access to proper healthcare.
In India, it seems that inequality contributed, among other ways, by stigmatising people who were infected, even if they recovered. They were rendered pariahs by their neighbours and friends. Consequently, people avoided getting tested and put off hospitalisation.
The EU does not have this kind of inequality in general but it does have pockets that display the same logic. In Sweden, migrants living in multi-generational households, working in old people’s homes, on contracts that penalised sick leave... avoided staying home if they felt ill – with the results that are now well known.
In several places in Europe, abattoirs have been nodes of contagion. Why abattoirs and not, say, factories? Because factories have contracts that offer the possibility of sick leave, while abattoirs do not.
Abattoirs have other environmental features that might make them more prone to spread the virus. But there’s no doubting that poor employment conditions discourage people on low wages from staying home when sick.
This world tour tells us at least two things that Europe needs to keep in mind as it seeks to recover fast, without relapses. First, European solidarity matters but so do national borders. A European vision for the foreseeable future needs to find a way of articulating a shared common good, which tames national chauvinism, without, however, dissolving national borders.
The second lesson concerns how the financial aid and grants are spent. It’s all well for Robert Abela to enthuse about how our bonanza in aid will be invested to grow the economy. But what kind of growth will it be?
Growth that brings with it rising inequality is imprudent. It would make the economy itself more vulnerable to a devastating second wave. If we don’t invest in a more equal society – in equality of dignity and access to welfare – we will be reckless.