We must consider epidemiological models. Without intervention, Covid19 could have caused the deaths of about 40 million people worldwide, including 400,000 in France, or about 0.6% of the world's population (over 7 billion people). This almost corresponds to an additional year of mortality (550,000 deaths per year in France and 55 million worldwide). In practice, this means that for the most affected regions in the darkest months, the number of coffins needed is 5 to 10 times more than usual (which was unfortunately seen in some areas in Italy).
Despite the many uncertainties of the forecasts, it was these warnings that convinced governments that this was not just a flu, and that people should be restricted urgently. Undoubtedly, no one knows very well how many human losses will have taken place, which have exceeded 100,000 deaths worldwide in recent days. Epidemiologists hope that the final balance will be stopped at 10 or 20 percent compared to the initial forecasts, but the ambiguities are significant. According to a report released by Imperial College on March 27, only a massive policy of testing and isolating infected people significantly reduces victims. In other words, pandemic content will not be enough to avoid evil.
Great inequalities
The only historical precedent with which to make comparisons is the 1918-1920 Spanish flu, which we now know was not simply Spanish and caused nearly 50 million deaths worldwide (about 2% of the world's population in at that time).
Utilizing civil status data, researchers found that this average mortality rate hides large disparities: between 0.5% and 1% in the US, compared to 3% in Indonesia and South Africa, and more than 5% in India. This is what should worry us: the epidemic could reach new heights in poor countries whose health systems are unable to withstand the shock, especially as they have suffered austerity policies imposed by the prevailing ideology of decades. last.
In the absence of minimal income, the poorest people will soon have to go back in search of work, which reopens the epidemic. In India, the closure has consisted mainly of blocking people from rural areas and blocking urban areas, which has violently halted any communication. But to avoid hunger, we need the welfare state, not the prison state.
For the most urgent cases, substantial social spending (health and minimum income) can only be financed by lending. In West Africa, it is an opportunity to review the new common currency and put it at the service of an investment-based development project for youth and infrastructure (and not in the service of increasing the wealth of the wealthiest). All should be based on a more successful democratic and parliamentary architecture than the impossibility that is still in place in the euro area (where meetings of finance ministers behind closed doors have the same ineffectiveness as in the time of the financial crisis).
Very soon, this new welfare state will require a fair taxation and an international financial register, in order to be able to tax the richest and largest companies as needed. The current regime of free movement of capital, established in the 1980s and 1990s under the influence of rich countries (and especially Europe), de facto promoted the proliferation of billionaires and multinationals around the world. He blocked the fragile tax administrations in poor countries from creating a fair and lawful taxation, seriously damaging state building.
This crisis could also be an opportunity to think about a minimum health and education quota for all the inhabitants of the planet, funded by universal law of all countries, based on tax bills paid by the largest economic actors: large businesses, high-income families and wealthy (for example more than 10 times the world average, ie 1% of the world's richest).
Above all, this prosperity is based on a global economic system (which has been built on the unlimited exploitation of the world's natural and human resources for centuries). It therefore requires global adjustment to ensure its social and ecological sustainability, especially with the implementation of an environmental agreement that makes it possible to prohibit higher carbon emissions.
Such a transformation will require many challenges. For example, as a start, are Macron and Trump ready to cancel the tax benefits of the wealthiest during this term? The answer will depend more on the mobilization of the opponents than on their desire. We need to be sure of one thing: the great political and ideological unrest has not yet begun. / Le Monde
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