Oliver Wyman Reveals Policy Measures To Keep The COVID-19 R Infection Rate Below 1

Oliver Wyman’s COVID-19 Pandemic Navigator introduced a comprehensive toolkit that connects epidemiological modelling with a detailed impact on the earnings and capital of businesses. With the launch of its ‘COVID-19 pandemic navigator: the great balancing act’, the toolkit has been expanded to apply to policymakers so they can quickly articulate and implement a national risk appetite in terms of health, economy, privacy and lifestyle.

Estimating that revenue loss for over 50% of business sectors has already ranged from -25% to -50%, with another 30% even more severely impacted, the global management consultancy outlines a set of policy measures to help Governments keep the COVID-19 R infection rate below 1 while minimizing further damage to the economy and broader society. Their models drill into four factors that will have a major bearing on the dynamics of COVID-19 in the coming months:

FACTOR 1: Testing and tracing capacity

• While the initial blunt-instrument lockdown response slowed down the COVID-19 transmission, it came at a very high economic cost
• A smarter approach to achieve a similar level of reduction in R is to increase testing and contact tracing and to coerce positives into self-isolation/quarantine
• Testing needs to be accompanied by an instantaneous contact tracing regime. The timelines of the test results and the speed with which contacts are informed is vital, otherwise the virus will continue to outpace the testing system

FACTOR 2: Immunity levels

• Getting a handle around these undetected cases is crucial in understanding the dynamics of an outbreak, if immunity exists
• The traditional SIR model needs to be extended to include two more states: Infected (Undetected) and Removed (Undetected). An Oliver Wyman whitepaper published in April shows the results of the analysis and the academic research on the undetected universe

FACTOR 3: Seasonality effects

• The data does offer some hope that there might be a sweet-spot for an outbreak in the -5 to +15 degrees Celsius range and that the summer weather in the Northern hemisphere might lead to slowing growth
• But seasonality will not be enough on its own to kill the virus. Oliver Wyman scenarios treat seasonality as one of the unknown factors that can be switched on and off

FACTOR 4: Partitioning strategies

• There are major benefits in applying partitioned approaches for different regions or demographics, but a great deal of care needs to be taken to study the data at the highest level of granularity that is possible to avoid generalizations, for example:
  • Partitions by region: the model shows London as an example of exhibiting the lowest level for R possibly driven by its higher immunity levels, but it is a big region with many of its boroughs having had a very different experience of the crisis
  • Partitions by demographic: A move towards an instantaneous testing and tracing regime which captures the necessary data on demographic groups will be crucial to allow these partitioned strategies to become a more effective policy tool. For example, when the vulnerable population will at some point come into contact with the non-vulnerable population (e.g. the workers in cares homes)

Barrie Wilkinson, EMEA Head of Customer First at Oliver Wyman, says: “Our analysis will help policymakers not only to observe what is happening to R but also to understand why it is happening and which factors are contributing to any changes, allowing plans to be set out with more confidence.

“The COVID-19 virus initially had the upper hand but was met with the full force of a hammer-like policy response. But this hammer had an equally devastating effect on the economy as it did on the virus. We hope that the next phase of this story will be characterised by human ingenuity, with data and technology playing a much more prominent role in our response.

“While the creation of this new apparatus will take a massive coordinated effort and investment, our modelling shows that it will pay rapid dividends in the near to medium term. And this invaluable apparatus will still be in place when future and potentially even more deadly viruses threaten livelihoods.”

About the COVID-19 Pandemic Navigator

The Oliver Wyman COVID-19 Pandemic Navigator forecasts the number of new and cumulative coronavirus cases across nearly 40 countries, incorporating the effectiveness of containment and suppression measures. It also provides insights into how to manage after the peak, as well as the ability to study potential future containment scenarios until a vaccine or a scale treatment solution is in place. The Navigator provides a quantitative basis on which governments, industry groups, and companies can examine the impact of COVID-19 on business, and consider how to “reopen” responsibly.

About Oliver Wyman

Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting. With offices in 60 cities across 29 countries, Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation. The firm has more than 5,000 professionals around the world who work with clients to optimize their business, improve their operations and risk profile, and accelerate their organizational performance to seize the most attractive opportunities. Oliver Wyman is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies [NYSE: MMC]. For more information, visit www.oliverwyman.com. Follow Oliver Wyman on Twitter @OliverWyman.