Certified Coronavirus Immunity as a Resource and Strategy to Cope with Pandemic Costs. (15th April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eichenberger, Reiner; Hegselmann, Rainer; Savage, David A.; Stadelmann, David; Torgler, Benno
• Is Part Of: Kyklos. Volume 73:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 464
• Page End: 474
• Publication Date: 2020-04-15
• Subjects: Social sciences -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1111/kykl.12227
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0023-5962

Abstract

SUMMARY: A pandemic is not only a biological event and a public health disaster, but it also generates impacts that are worth understanding from economic, societal, historical, and cultural perspectives. In this contribution, we argue that as the disease spreads, we are able to harness a valuable key resource: people who have immunity to coronavirus. This vital resource must be effectively employed, it must be certified, it must be searched for, it must be found, and it may even be actively produced . We discuss why this needs to be done and how this can be achieved. Our arguments not only apply to the current pandemic but also to any future rapidly spreading, infectious disease epidemics. In addition, we argue for high awareness of a major secondary, nonbiological crisis arising from the side effects of societal and economic pandemic reactions to actual or imagined health risks. There is a risk that the impacts of the secondary crisis could outweigh that of the biological event.