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Risk Practice
COVID-19: Brieng note,
March 30, 2020
Our latest perspectives on the coronavirus pandemic.
March 2020
© Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images
by Matt Craven, Mihir Mysore, Shubham Singhal, Sven Smit, and Matt Wilson
The pandemic continues to expand. More than 175
countries and territories have reported cases of
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus
(SARS-CoV-2). Case growth has accelerated to
more than 735,000 cases and 35,000 deaths as
of March 30. Some geographies have a handful of
cases, others with early community transmission
have a few hundred, and those with uncontrolled,
widespread transmission have tens of thousands.
Governments have launched unprecedented public-
health and economic responses. The situation
evolves by the day.
In this note, we offer some of our latest insights,
starting with five likely epidemiologic swing factors
that will largely determine the contours of the
pandemic in the next year. We then summarize two
new articles designed to help senior executives lead
through the crisis. In “Beyond coronavirus: The path
to the next normal,” we outline five time frames to
help leaders organize their thinking and responses.
And in “Safeguarding our lives and our livelihoods:
The imperative of our time,” we explain how business
and society can and must take on both spheres
of action, right away. These and many more are
available in our collection of coronavirus thinking.
We conclude with a short list of the areas in which
executives should be concentrating their thought
and attention.
are relatively low. The extent to which these
countries follow the path of countries such as
Singapore that have achieved rapid control,
versus that of western Europe and the United
States, will be a major driver of outcomes.
Moreover, these geographies also skew to more
tropical climates and will provide some evidence
on how much of a mitigating effect heat and
humidity will have on the coronavirus. If the virus
proves to be seasonal, this has the potential to
shape both emerging and existing transmission
complexes.
—Impact of physical-distancing measures. We
know that rigorous, at-scale physical-distancing
measures can drive a significant reduction in the
number of new COVID-19 cases. However, given
the range of approaches in use—and the varying
stringency with which they are being applied—
there’s much still to learn about what exactly
works and how long it takes. In the next one
to two weeks, we will learn much more, as we
begin to see evidence of the impact of physical
distancing in Europe and the United States.
—Efficacy of health-system surge. As the world
has awakened to the potential risks of COVID-19,
there has been a massive effort to add capacity
to the healthcare system rapidly. This has
rightly focused on adding acute-care capacity,
