On July 31, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications(Nature Sub journal)published online the academic paper "Assessment of Monthly Economic Losses in Wuhan Under the Lockdown Against CoVID-19" written by the visiting soldiers research team of our School of Economics and Management. Professor You Shibing is the first author and corresponding author of Wuhan University. Professor You's doctoral and postgraduate students are the main research members.
With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, aggressive countermeasures have been taken, including the implementation of the unprecedented lockdown of the city, which will necessarily cause huge economic losses for the city of Wuhan. In this paper, the author attempt to uncover the interactions between epidemic prevention and control measures and economic-social development by estimating the health loss and meso-economic loss from a human-oriented perspective. Relevant studies reveal that the health burden caused by this pandemic is estimated to be 4.4899 billion yuan (CNY), and the loss of residents’ mental health is evaluated to be 114.545 billion yuan, the direct economic losses in transport, logistics, and warehousing, postal service, food, and beverage service industries reach 21.6094 billion yuan, and the monthly indirect economic losses of all industries are 36.39661994 billion yuan caused by the lockdown. The total monthly economic losses during the lockdown reach 177.0413 billion yuan. However, the lockdown policy has been considered to reduce COVID-19 infections by >180 thousand, which saves about 20 thousand lives, as well as nearly 30 billion yuan on medical costs. Therefore, the lockdown policy in Wuhan has obvious long-term benefits on the society and the total economic losses will be at a controllable level if effective measures are taken to combat COVID-19.