For the Russian Federation, quarantine is more destructive than an epidemic - economist
The restrictive measures introduced in the Russian Federation due to the threat of the spread of the coronavirus epidemic are fraught with severe socio-economic shocks for the Russian economy.
Professor of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation Alexei Zubets stated this in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
“The business models developed for trade and catering did not provide for such force majeure as the closure of an enterprise for two months due to quarantine. Now these companies are actually being swept out of the market. Small and medium-sized businesses will suffer greatly. I'm expecting a surge in unemployment. There is a feeling that quarantine measures have not been thought out. We could easily lose 5% to 10% of annual GDP. For the economy, this is much more disastrous than the human losses from the pandemic,” the economist said.
According to him, in a harsh scenario, when quarantine lasts several months, 10-15 million Russians risk being left without work.
“There is a growing understanding among decision-makers that the cure is worse than the disease. The situation is fraught with serious socio-economic upheavals. When Russia leaves them, the people will bombard the authorities with questions: where is the money, why did we lose our jobs, on the basis of what data were decisions made? The risks of excesses in this case are many times greater than in the story of the pension reform,” Zubets believes.
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