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It's no longer news that the corona virus pandemic has rocked every national economy, it's lead to inflation, recession, economic meltdown, hunger etc. We have been discussing it's impact (mostly on the economy) for more than two months now and I beg to change the discussion slightly...

As the government seeks a way to reopen their respective nations, I've been thinking what is going to be the opportunity cost to ensure that this 'operation' goes according to plan, bearing in mind that there is little or no funds to be disbursed to all sections of the country. Opportunity cost can be defined thus:
The EU, World Bank, IMF and other world organizations have come out to aid various countries with loans, grants etc to raise fundings in their respective countries, so what areas of the economy or what sectors in the country do you think requires (and will likely get) more attention and what's going to be the opportunity cost.. Of course with less money, the more there is a need for a scale of preference, you can use your country, major world powers or developed/underdeveloped as a method of categorization; What sectors will likely be top and bottom (opportunity cost) In their scale of preference to propel the economy out of recession.

First i get shudders when ever I imagine something like this -pandemic- resurfaces again, I am tentatively suggesting the first thing government to look into is the medical/health sector this -pandemic- has exposed many limitations of health sector, why said tentative suggestions is that something might come before the medical sector but on till then. Government has failed the health sector in many ways and the reality of the virus was a needed calamity so government can recognize that.

It's just sad though that this pandemic is really a wake out call for governments to look into the medical/health sector. And for the record, at least in our country, majority of those who have been infected and died are doctors and nurses who are in the forefront of the fight.

As for the opportunity cost - what other options do you have right now? It's either the government reopen and relax the lockdown or re-open slowly just to make the economy moving. At the end of the day, there will be cost to weigh-in, all industries are affected.

Well, our country added their debt and I think that is necessary as there are a lot of expenditures that happened during the pandemic. Our country is slowly turning the situation to normal and it is really necessary since the government is not the ones that should get to work right now, the people also need to work for themselves especially their family. I don't know what will be the other steps that will be done by the government but there are also those talks about adding some taxes in live streaming platforms and online shops resellers which I think is not that good.

You can't just change the discussion OP coz the pandemic is really happening now for three months and continuing. And you probably need to understand that it is the caused of 90% of what is happening in the world.

I do believe that this is a wake up call, not just for the government but for the all of us living. For government, after this hell of problem, they should be focusing more on health care system why? because some city has only 1 hospital? or 2? 3? some are private and so on. The medical research labs also must be in focus so we can be prepared ( I was about to say 'more' prepared but uhh can't tell things that we are prepared) This is a wake up call for government who is spending more on tactical weapons for wars! and for us people? this is a call that the environment isn't just about being clean and neat it should be free.

The economy cannot be closed for a very long time, there should be alternatives propose to what is need right now.

Yes definitely every industry is affected, for example in my country, the educational sector is one area that the government promised to support financially, that was before the pandemic, large sums amounting to billions were to be disbursed to improve the educational sector over here which is lacking in necessary amenities.

But with the way things have panned out, I don't think that will be possible anymore, at least not after some years, money will be put in areas in need of urgent rehabilitation, the medical sector is one for example, thus the value of an improved educational sector is one of the things my country will miss out on due to the pandemic.

People might be talking about the opportunity costs and such but at the end of the day what am worried about is this Pandemic going to kill more than half of the population due to reopening.

But then again at the same time people are also dying at home with nothing to eat.

Sustainability as we are talking here is long gone , the government needs to build up opportunities for the people , they need to start jobs for the less privileged ones , they need to increase the products produced by their own country . Decrease the import and give people a fair wage . I don't think they will be able to put more funds in now.

We need job opportunities.
We need employment.
We need people to realize that , they have to use products made in their country more , which will boost the local sales.

Taking loan from world bank might not be option here , over the time this loan will eventually crush the already existing economy that is hanging by the thread .

Generally the development of the country overall is the "opportunity cost" here if you think about it funds will already be focusing on these pandemic rather than rebuilding or starting any kind of project during this time. So most likely we will still see a lot of projects to be either cancelled or postponed in order to prioritized the damage that this pandemic has brought to their national budget as well as their citizens. The postponement of projects and other developments is big since jobs and businesses will be also eliminated for the ones related to it so there will be a lot of sacrifices that will be made and we are still not experiencing it. Generally the country's economy is affected here both in the private and public sector.

Getting a debt is an option of a bridging down economy, despite any circumstance even if it is not due to the pandemic. This serious problem has become the leading factor of everything that is happening, from people's death to collapsing economy and from the limited sources of a nation there's a helping hand that is supporting everyone to get rid of this but then we need to pay for it. It is expected tho, coz every government has been putting all of their reserves for the people, getting a debt is needed to survive they don't care if it costs trillions because we are the one who is going to pay for it, most especially our grandchildren, if we survive this lol just kidding.

As part of the recovery, the government will be adding more taxes, I don't know about this one but they will put a tax on everything that is moving immune to the effects of the pandemic.

I believe opportunity cost for the people in government should be soul searching. They should eschew favouritism, self enrichment and embezzlement. The pandemic showed us all that death knows nobody and so people should do the right things at all time.
For corrupt government especially, monies allocated for projects to better the country should be used as it has been appropriated. And hospitals need to be equipped to standard and practices and ethics should be adhered to. Imagine some countries don't have PPEs for health workers.

That should be the main concern here. There is no better solution but to just suspend everything else and focus more on killing Corona. Preventing it from spreading and killing more men and then we begin to reopen until we are confident its contained and then they can talk anything like opportunity cost.

Right now we have the opportunity to keep our lives with us, reopening while the virus still spreading will lessen this opportunity to live.

Postponed or if the propose project are not going to be cancelled, their budget are going to be cut as countries need to shift their goal to help their population and get the economy to a slow start. I'm sure that there are financial packages being give out by government to help everyone but it is not enough.

And not just opportunity cost, but for me there are pressure to the government to understand what the trade-offs will be to make the correct decisions as they need to get everyone on the same page.

Yeah, it sucks since I know a lot of resellers right now and they are not actually earning that much. Another thing is that we are still in GCQ so most of the people in the country that can't get out usually surf the interent and watch videos on Netflix and Youtube. If this will be taxed, I don't know what people will think about it since they will be taxing their entertainment in their houses.

Actually, I am not good enough in how the opportunity costs mechanism and will work in every country. Each country may have similar problems, the financial and economic problems because of this pandemic (of course the health also).
But here, every country has different solutions to overcome this problem, based on the condition and situation of the society and also what the country has.
personally, I see how the society around, it is not only going to be killed by the virus but also killed by the condition where they have no money again at least to eat. They cannot work but they must pay their loans, their bills, and also their daily needs. the Government and other people can only help for their foods, not others. this is a dilemma.

If we are working outside, we are probably infected by the virus. And here, what's about new normal? It may also have positive and negative impacts to the society, government, and also other sectors.

What happens to my country right now:
1. The government is trying to deal with the economic problem, but ti still focuses also on overcoming the pandemic by planning to do "new normal". We can probably work and do activities and jobs like usual, but with health protocol. there are also some strict rules to be implemented if we do not have any urgent activities outside, better to stay at home.

2. Some parties focus on highlighting the local products by the country. By maximizing the local product, it can help the economics inside of this country.
3. now, we can also find many more parties sounding about online jobs that will lead the people to stay work but by online, earning income from online without having big impacts to keep studies.

in fact, there are some progress on how people think about the jobs to earn money during this pandemic. not only working outsides. But unfortunately, not all people can do this.

In our country, the government is so messed up and they don't do what they should do to fight this covid-19 and survive this pandemic. We just need to become thankful for the frontliners who are risking their lives just to do their duty, but not for the governments who are not supporting and appreciating the sacrifices of our doctors and nurses.

The government should stop corrupting the national budget and should allocate those funds in the right place at the right time. Health sector should be the priority of the government but they are not doing that because of not taking the Covid-19 seriously. They are focusing on some other issues that are really not necessary during this time.


As there are still a risk of getting the virus, people are still getting scared going outside just to do their thing. This opportunity cost can somehow help our economy but not that guaranteed that it can make us economically stable and recovered. The government should not stop right there, they should think of other possible solutions for that.

Opportunity with bitcoin become legal digital currency payment could bring faster method and way to make transaction not only in domestic payment but also could be solution payment to other country, low inflation and faster payment than using cash money. How ever many countries have try to analyze what feature and benefit using bitcoin as digital payment currency and give way for bitcoin to be legal payment at the future.

The adoption of cryptocurrency would be their biggest oppurtunity but this will also mean that there will be compromise between two sides, the decentralization of bitcoin will be affected since governing authorities would want a piece of their pie, I do think that it is better that cryptocurrency industry should allow this compromise because this is also a big oppurtunity for them to cater more individuals because they are injected to mainstream circulation. This kinds of oppurtunity appears once in a life time but they are last long enough for both sides to decides on how to prosper and not stomp one another.

The Philippines received tons of loans and cash aids from other countries but seem to not invest it in anything substantial as of the moment. Government economists are yet to say their thoughts about it, and with the slow and gradual reopening of the economy, for sure there are industries that will be prioritized and there are some that will be in the waiting list. The way I see it, food manufacturing and supply chains are what the government is taking their attention to as of the moment, while the industry neglected are that of the entertainment sector since they really are not that much of a priority currently, but they do rake in a huge amount of profit for the government. But in all honestly, the administration is really not making a move to help the citizens and businesses to reopen the economy--even at least 50%--since most of their efforts are towards other things (Anti-Terrorism bill is marked as urgent, though it brought about some questions re: bill of rights (https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/05/philippines-new-anti-terrorism-act-endangers-rights)).

Perhaps it might take a while for the government to know which industries need top priority and which industries can wait a little longer. For the mean time, most nations are unsure as to what to put first aside from their ongoing battle against the pandemic. We haven't seen a problem this large in the modern times that it's really hard to put two and two together without making a mistake.

In my country,there's no clear priority about which sector of the economy should be stimulated more.
The there was a 60/40 program to keep the employees on their current jobs and preventing the employers to fire them.There are some cheap loans offered by a government-owned bank.
The farmers were kinda incentivized to sell their products in the supermarkets,but this will be temporary.
I really hope that the stimulus plans will be reduced as soon as possible in most countries.Government support does more harm than good in any industry.

This is not the case in every country. In countries like my where we have public health system it's different. Many measures where introduced to stop virus from spreading and not to put too big burden on health system but it was functioning well. There is no unique approach for all countries in the world but I'm sure there is room for improvement in each of them and I hope we've all learned something, not just governments.

In this situation, the government will try to restore the infrastructure related to basic needs, such as transportation, food, healthcare, and education. After that, they can restore other non-essential sectors. They don't have much choice anyway if you want to think from the opportunity cost perspective since humans need physiological and safety needs to be fulfilled first before they can become productive.

Everyone has learned too many things about this pandemic, not only the government but also each individual we have sorted all the options that we have only to survive in this pandemic. Opportunity cost might bring regression if the chosen option would fail, we must face whatever the result of our governments' decision besides we have already gone through the worse and I know each of us including our country will be able to handle the effect if the first option failed.

Anyway, IMO we only need to do our part since we have experienced how the government and the health sector fails in managing the pandemic and what we can share might already be a big help in the country specifically in the economy.

But the question is, what options does the government have to fix or even handle this pandemic? How many options do they have, and what is the best one among the others? For me, it's really hard to speak about the best alternative since this pandemic is a big issue and it's not easy to handle. Even the government is having a hard fine to evaluate and make decisions because it includes the whole citizen of a country that may suffer from the option they choose.

Most government is now trying to slowly reopen businesses to avoid further economic recession, but they should have also given time for health care to ensure that these people going back to work will be safe and get treated in case they will get infected.

In my opinion it is very likely that governments are going to concentrate on the primary sector of the economy which includes agriculture, mining and fishing, and it is not difficult to understand why, governments need to prioritize the basic needs of their populations, so anything related to food production and to manufacturing industries is going to take priority, and most likely the service sector of the economy is going to suffer the most, especially tourism since as we know many countries are still restricting travels to other countries and many people are not going to be very comfortable sleeping in a bedroom that has been used by hundreds of people before them during this pandemic.

What many nations who are ruled by a democratic capitalist system missing out is the fact that you could maybe go with a socialist route on this to make sure that government has a huge income and requires a lot less tax and helps basically every single human on their nation. How? Simply just look at all the companies who are rocked and doing bad, see how bad they are and how much potential they have, and if you want to, just buy the company from the owners.

Everyone wins this way, the owner sells his company and gets out of bankruptcy trouble, government spends money wisely and owns a company that will generate profit in the long run, and tax payers are winning because you did paid a lot for that company (government did but with your money) but with that profit you will pay less taxes in the futures.

Well, I'm living in a developing country and you know the type of government here, they don't really care. The health system is really messed up, although I don't really know what will be their next action, but I think they really need to focus on the health system and build it to a level that is much better than what it is now. And it's time they support the medical practitioners and provide them with whatever they may need and make sure that they are lacking nothing at all.

Apart from health, I don't see any other sector that needs more attention, unless agriculture. Even finance is suffering, I do see many people are slowly adopting cryptocurrencies which honestly providing them better living compared what they earned from other things. Mining and crytpo trading are famous here but I am not sure about what government's take on this around the recession times.

Opportunity cost of the resources used to produce goods supplied through the public sector. If these resources were not used by the government, then they could be used by people and firms in the private sector. opportunity cost is that the cost of one item is the lost opportunity to do or consume something else; in short, opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative.

I know the government probably have their backs to the wall in terms of what decision to make because of the pandemic, but then a decision must be made, and that's why I made this thread, imo there will be stagnant development all over the world and nations will feel the impact of the decisions their governments will make in years to come.

One thing is certain, and it is that the government doesn't have enough money to ensure all the branches of the nation and the economy is funded adequately, so some will def experience stagnanted growth, and will struggle to catch up with the rest, the borrowed funds also have to be paid back, recession is also looming etc, for now the government is only concerned about sustenance, funds are mainly for sustaining the economy and their citizens, (and I understand that) it will work for now, but the opportunity costs of these decisions will affect the country negatively in the long run.

I don't want to call it quits but we're almost the same, I'm living in a country where the government's action is confusing at all. In the middle of a crisis, we already see how incompetent the other branches of the government is, most especially our department of health it is really bugging how they are not in prepare even after given the 3 months lockdown period, that should be the grace period to think of a good call right? I just don't know  ???

Maybe after these things, the government will realize how much worth focusing on the healthcare and national resources instead of getting prepared into a war for buying a jet planes and warships. And I'm sure they will also realize how much it costs to transition into a digital one, it cost less than what they are doing right now but there's a corruption, the root of being stuck.

At first many countries underestimated the spread of COVID19 in Wuhan. Which ended up being a pandemic throughout the world,
in my opinion the opportunity cost that must be prioritized by the government is the economic and health sectors. Because the two
sectors are very affected by COVID19. Provide medical equipment including a special building for victims of COVID19 and provide
stimulus in the form direct assistance of money to the citizen, so that people's daily needs can be fulfilled.

The facts are that it's mostly old people with poor health that die (but no one listens to facts lol)

Just tell old people to stay at home, young people (who are the ones working anyway) go to work

And for old people who live with young people who go to work, use a fraction of the printed money to put them in nursing homes until this is over

Then take government/central bank money to figure out a way to get rid of the virus (vaccine, etc.)

Now someone give me a Nobel prize

I think the government will usually spend in the interest of the country because the country's economic situation is much worse because of the virus Many people have become unemployed and are spending their days in despair. In that case, if the government spends on the economic sector and the health sector the situation in the country will improve a lot and the unemployed people will find their way to work If the economic situation improves trade and commerce will expand.

It would take some time but people should really get back to their jobs first.

Not all of us could wait for the aids being sent by the governments forever. They need to get back to their jobs or them finding a way to get a profit for a short time for them to support their family or themselves. The governments are making new taxing laws, right now resellers in our country would be taxed because of it. People are just making the most probable solution, to grasp online stores and earn some small profit and then they will be putting taxes in there.

I absolutely agree on that! Since our country $1.25B (https://business.inquirer.net/298615/ph-adds-1-25b-in-loans-to-war-chest-vs-covid-19/amp) to fight Cvid 19, then the best way for utilizing the money they get is by spending it to improve the health sector. They must prioritize:

1. Improving our laboratories here because I can feel that we're already late to the latest technologies available
2. Buy PPEs, masks and essential materials to protect our frontliners against the disease
3. Give incentives to our health workers because they're not invincible after all. Risking their lives should be compensated by money at least.
4. After surviving this pandemic, I think government should now focus on funding post-pandemic plans just in case.

Honestly, I'm not sure with the talks regarding mass testing even many people are demanding for it. I find it inefficient and expensive at the same time (just my opinion tho).

Another concern, since most of us are now living in a so called "new normal" which means most activities are held online. I really hope our government will make steps to improve the internet connection in our country. It is so embarrassing to admit that we are one of the few countries in SEA region who got slow Internet connection :(.