This 2019 report by the World Economic Forum and the Harvard Global Health Institute warned of an outbreak like COVID-19 and told businesses to step up to the increasing risk of pandemics.
Launched in January 2019, Outbreak Readiness and Business Impact highlighted the growing risk of infectious disease and cautioned businesses that pandemics were worryingly underrepresented in considerations of risk. It proposed tailored insights on the impact of outbreaks, offering strategies for effective response and resilience. There was stark warning that “the world remains ill-prepared to detect and respond to outbreaks and is not prepared to respond to a significant pandemic threat”. It said outbreaks and epidemics could cause catastrophic economic damage when they occur.
Just one year later, the novel coronavirus forced the Chinese government to issue the largest quarantine order in human history, affecting an estimated 45 million people. Now, within just a few months, global cases of the virus (as of March 11) have surpassed 120,000, a number of countries with community transmission have closed schools and cancelled mass gatherings and some borders have been closed. The WHO today officially declared the outbreak a pandemic. More disruption will follow.
The WHO is cautiously optimistic about containing the virus, but the impact on the economy may dent that optimism more profoundly than the worrying global health implications of the virus itself. Markets have plummeted due to fears of a coronavirus-driven recession, travel restrictions and quarantines are affecting hundreds of millions of people, disrupting just-in-time supply chains and triggering sales warnings across technology, automotive, consumer goods, pharmaceutical and other industries.
The report cited economists’ estimations that pandemics would cause average annual economic losses of 0.7% of global GDP over the coming decades – a threat similar in scale to that of climate change. It said that with the risks increasing, “we cannot afford to continue like this”.
It set out how businesses should become pandemic-resilient by investing in strategic, operational and financial resistance and suggested that these measures present a duty of care to society and economies.
Rather than business leaders being “bewildered bystanders” of global disease outbreaks, the report urged them to step up to the threat of epidemics to shape a safer, more stable world for all. “So when the next infectious disease breaks, the world will be better positioned to respond and recover.”
To read the full report, click here.