Huihui Wang et al.

Modelling the economic burden of SARS-CoV-2 infection in health care workers in four countries

Nature, May 2023; doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38477-7

Abstract

Health care workers (HCWs) experienced greater risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study applies a cost-of-illness (COI) approach to model the economic burden associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCWs in five low- and middle-income sites (Kenya, Eswatini, Colombia, KwaZulu-Natal province, and Western Cape province of South Africa) during the first year of the pandemic. We find that not only did HCWs have a higher incidence of COVID-19 than the general population, but in all sites except Colombia, viral transmission from infected HCWs to close contacts resulted in substantial secondary SARS-CoV-2 infection and death. Disruption in health services as a result of HCW illness affected maternal and child deaths dramatically. Total economic losses attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs as a share of total health expenditure ranged from 1.51% in Colombia to 8.38% in Western Cape province, South Africa. This economic burden to society highlights the importance of adequate infection prevention and control measures to minimize the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in HCWs.

MárioCoutinho dos Santos et al.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hotel Industry’s economic performance: Evidence from Portugal

Cell, May 2023; doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15850

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economic and financial performance of the Portuguese mainland hotel industry. For that purpose, we implement a novel empirical approach to gauge the impact of the pandemic during the 2020–2021 period in terms of the industry's aggregated operating revenues, net total assets, net total debt, generated cash flow, and financial slack. To that end, we derive and estimate a sustainable growth model to project the 2020 and 2021 ‘Covid-free’ aggregated financial statements of a representative Portuguese mainland hotel industry sample. The impact of the Covid pandemic is measured by the difference between the ‘Covid-free’ financial statements and the historical data drawn from the Orbis and Sabi databases. An MC simulation with bootstrapping indicates that the deviations of the deterministic from the stochastic estimates for major indicators vary between 0.5 and 5.5%. The deterministic operating cash flow estimate lies within plus or minus two standard deviations from the mean interval of the operating cash flow distribution. Based on this distribution, we estimate the downside risk, measured by cash flow at risk, at 1294 million euros. Overall findings shed some light on the economic and financial repercussions of extreme events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, providing us with a better understanding of how to design public policies and business strategies to recover from such an impact.