Economy over health

[Coyster]

The economy was shut earlier this year to accommodate efforts in tracing cases of corona virus and to stop the rapid spread, but from the news I'm about to share, I do not think any sort of wave or spread of the virus can shut down the economy again. Costa Rica as a country is a tourist attraction to people from different parts of the world, but majorly from the U.S., and that's to say the U.S. dollars plays a very important role in the Costa Rican economy.

More Americans travel to Costa Rica than any other nationality. In 2019, over 40% of all tourists to the country were from the United States.

Despite the United States of America having more than five million confirmed Corona virus cases, Costa Rica is opening it's borders to American tourists and to make things sound good, only Americans from six states:

Residents of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont will be able to fly into Costa Rica from Sept. 1.

Mind you this five states combined have had a total of about 694,765 confirmed cases of covid-19, which is about 20 times higher than the number of cases in Costa Rica. So it's obvious this is a move made to stimulate the Costa Rican economy, and can be said to be at the expense of health. This is very risky from the Costa Rican government and it'll cause huge backlash if it leads to a wide spread of covid-19 in their territory, as of course they will put the blame on this decision.

Another thing to note is how important a role they (Costa Rica) are playing in trying to revive their economy, do you think other nations will also follow suit and take risky measures like this one to generate funds needed for the fast recovery of the economy. Some people, in my country for example have been calling for fresh total lockdowns to be imposed as the only option to defeat the virus completely, I don't think any government can take that step again, what do you think?
Read the full news, it's a good read: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/25/costa-rica-is-allowing-american-tourists-from-six-us-states.html

[1715570522]

1715570522

[1715570522]

1715570522

[1715570522]

1715570522

[jackg]

Costa Rica gdp contributions from tourism look to be around a mere 2.6%. I think new Zealand stood at around 5% and the UK is about 10% so I don't think it's a lot for their economy to deal with. But even that small percentage will likely be noticeable by them if they didn't do it and it might be one of their highest international investment sources too - or they're trying to grow tourism.

If you don't have a booming economy and you're running on a capitalist system then you have to deal with either a lot of your population not being able to afford basic necessities and/or death of citizens either by suicide or the newfound poverty (though they do have a lot of farmland).

The uks epidemic started in London and that was mainly due to the number of tourists there and potentially the international trading and business dealing that goes down there (if it does). They were about 3 weeks ahead of the UK in the initial propagation of the virus too and had their peek a few weeks earlier

[akram143]

It is impossible to stop the spreading virus, if they closed borders in the Jan itself then it could be a right decision but closing the borders doesn't make sense when they need funds to help their revival of economy which is more important that health to be honest in the view of government.So if people don't want to lose their lives then they have to stop doing such activities.

[figmentofmyass]

Costa Rica gdp contributions from tourism look to be around a mere 2.6%. I think new Zealand stood at around 5% and the UK is about 10% so I don't think it's a lot for their economy to deal with.

these numbers say tourism represents 5.1% or 5.8% of GDP depending on how it's calculated, so it's nothing to sneeze at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Costa_Rica#Tourism

a 5%+ annualized GDP contraction would be brutal. that's hundreds of thousands of jobs evaporated, plus hundreds of thousands more that are indirectly supported by tourism.

the losses may also be disproportionately distributed, badly affecting tourist locales while leaving manufacturing and agricultural areas mostly unaffected. this could factor into the decision too.

[palle11]

It is impossible to stop the spreading virus, if they closed borders in the Jan itself then it could be a right decision but closing the borders doesn't make sense when they need funds to help their revival of economy which is more important that health to be honest in the view of government.So if people don't want to lose their lives then they have to stop doing such activities.

On the contrary , I heard health is wealth. I think that should me you don't trade your health for wealth. If Costa rica or any other country expose their citizens health because of money to revive the economy, I don't think is a very wise decision. Bad health can kill so much than hunger and with hunger, help for food can easily come.

[Botnake]

It is impossible to stop the spreading virus, if they closed borders in the Jan itself then it could be a right decision but closing the borders doesn't make sense when they need funds to help their revival of economy which is more important that health to be honest in the view of government.So if people don't want to lose their lives then they have to stop doing such activities.

On the contrary , I heard health is wealth. I think that should me you don't trade your health for wealth. If Costa rica or any other country expose their citizens health because of money to revive the economy, I don't think is a very wise decision. Bad health can kill so much than hunger and with hunger, help for food can easily come.

As if we never know how to do the right protocol to prevent from being infected.

Yes, they open the boarder for gain tourist because they needed this to recover from the damage cause by pandemic. If you look at other countries especially not the rich countries, they are opening their economy despite of the pandemic because no one can ascertain when this pandemic will be over but people have to live and they can't allow people to die in hunger and not all the time the government can give support to people who lose their job to feed their families.

[Sanugarid]

It is impossible to stop the spreading virus, if they closed borders in the Jan itself then it could be a right decision but closing the borders doesn't make sense when they need funds to help their revival of economy which is more important that health to be honest in the view of government.So if people don't want to lose their lives then they have to stop doing such activities.

On the contrary , I heard health is wealth. I think that should me you don't trade your health for wealth. If Costa rica or any other country expose their citizens health because of money to revive the economy, I don't think is a very wise decision.

The pandemic recovery is not getting any better at all, if they don't any thing right now it will be the problem in the long run along with the pandemic. you can't just reason out that Health is Wealth, of course anyone wants to be healthy but the thing is the world is struggling in every aspect, economically, medical, etc. And don't think that tourists will be just that dumb to not do a social distance, who wants to be infected or to infect anyway?
What I see from Costa Rica is that they are opening a possibility of recovery for opening the tourism, they can't do things on their own after closing their borders.

Bad health can kill so much than hunger and with hunger, help for food can easily come.

Hunger is already a problem since the world has began, yet we cannot solve it. There will be hungry people with or without the pandemic.
Now tell me if help for food can easily come.

[Sanitough]

Hunger is already a problem since the world has began, yet we cannot solve it.

You can't solve that fully but at least you can minimize the problem by giving people a job for them to buy their basic needs particularly food.
Besides this world is not perfect, there are still people who are unfortunate but at least majority will have  a good life.

There will be hungry people with or without the pandemic.
Now tell me if help for food can easily come.

Your explanation is weird, you seem to be saying the similar.

~ There should be no law since crime is still committed, or we should not live because we will still die.  

[carlfebz2]

Another thing to note is how important a role they (Costa Rica) are playing in trying to revive their economy, do you think other nations will also follow suit and take risky measures like this one to generate funds needed for the fast recovery of the economy. Some people, in my country for example have been calling for fresh total lockdowns to be imposed as the only option to defeat the virus completely, I don't think any government can take that step again, what do you think?

Im not really against into these kind of decisions yet we know that no country would be able to sustain for long if they would just simply sit and do make some lockdown for too long.

Just like here on my place or country where services had already been opened up but of course they do follow strict health protocols to avoid severe widespread of the virus.

Government are pretty much aware that they can be sued out in case the situation comes worst and such decision doesnt only solely imply that they do only care for revenues and not into its
citizens health but to imagine on what would happen if the certain economy drops so bad?

[Oasisman]

As per Wikipedia, Costa Rica's tourism contribution to GDP is about 5.8% and that's roughly $1.9B yearly.
I don't know but I'm also confused is it really worthy to put their health at risk to revive the economy through tourism, which I also doubt a lot of tourist will risk their health to visit different countries at this dire situation.
I think it is during this time that governments from around the globe needs to invest and improve the Agricultural aspects that could feed the entire country during this time of pandemic.

[Sanitough]

As per Wikipedia, Costa Rica's tourism contribution to GDP is about 5.8% and that's roughly $1.9B yearly.

That's why it's hard to let go of that just to fully secure people from covid-19, and besides they already have over 35k confirmed cases per report, so they are already fighting against the virus and they know how to handle it.

https://www.coronatracker.com/country/costa-rica/

I don't know but I'm also confused is it really worthy to put their health at risk to revive the economy through tourism, which I also doubt a lot of tourist will risk their health to visit different countries at this dire situation.
I think it is during this time that governments from around the globe needs to invest and improve the Agricultural aspects that could feed the entire country during this time of pandemic.

Don't think that they will not ensure the safety of their people, they would open the tourism but they will ensure people with covid-19 won't be allowed to travel. US  and Costa Rica will both make a protocol against covid-19 so I guess it's not that worst as we are expecting to happen, in the end, the economy needs to survive while it's undeniable that some may suffer but it's the job of the government to protect the interest of the people, meaning the majority of people.

[Darker45]

This does not sound wise to me. Although there should be no such thing as economy over health or health over economy as there should be a balance, at times the other one is far more stretched than the other. And this case right here is one perfect example.

Is there no other way to intervene to the falling tourism industry of the country amidst the pandemic? Is this the only option left to help those who are at the worst end of this tourism crisis? Can the government not think of other not-so-risky ways to temporarily give livelihood to the victims of the falling industry? After all, this is not going to last forever.

I'm just hoping this is not another case of policy-makers up there making ungrounded decisions. This has always been a tendency with so many leaders; making plans, crafting and implementing policies, for the sake of the economy or whatnot without putting into consideration the real sentiments of the people.

The government better ask first the stakeholders themselves if they are agreeable to this risky reopening of tourist attractions to Americans. And if they do, they should put mechanisms that would protect their citizens from possible carriers of virus from foreign countries. Health and economy, after all, are of equal priority.

[raidarksword]

Health should comes first before anything else hence it's the best way to stop and deal with pandemic so that the spread will be minimized, implementing safety protocols to all citizens would be a wise decisions. The economy can recover no matter what happens and the solutions of this is to wait for the vaccine to come out and should be available later this year and then economy can rise back again without endangering the health of the citizens.

[Wexnident]

Not a wise move. Governments are basically giving up on ways to actually achieve a balance where people's health is guaranteed while the economy is able to survive, even at the bare minimum. They tried some moves as shown in the past months that has happened, but nothing really effective was able to pop up, so they probably just gave up and are now opting to stimulate the economy instead of prioritizing health, since they can probably just make the excuse of it's the individuals responsibility whether he/she should risk their health in exchange for their desires.

The same situation could be said here in our country tbh, we went under a strict quarantine period but still a bit lax compared to the first quarantine period back in March for 14 days, but really, there wasn't any improvement in terms of how the infections went up, and now the President just decided to go back to the period where businesses open up again with his reasoning being to stimulate the Economy.

[cosmofly]

In fact, this strategy is the wisest strategy up to now. The corona virus is thought to be man-made and its purpose is to harm the economies of the country. If the virus is still alive and spreading, the economy will increasingly weaken, people are always in a state of fear and dare not spend. Instead of always letting that happen in the long term, we should put it out in the short term. Agree that the economy will suffer badly during the lockdown but if left to long then we will lose more. 

[NavI_027]

do you think other nations will also follow suit and take risky measures like this one to generate funds needed for the fast recovery of the economy.

Whether our government will come that far due to desperation or not, it will surely make the situation even worse so I think it is not a good move. It is like having temporary relief with disastrous drawbacks . Thus, looking forward on our tourism should not be focused right now. I would agree if we are only talking about importing/exporting goods since you can assure that they are all clear once disinfected unlike to the risk could bring by a positive person (especially those asymptomatic). This will only add to the burden of our healthcare workers as contact tracing is difficult to execute.

Actually there's a simple logic there, we all know that corona virus is contagious so we must eliminate the possible carriers as much as possible. That's it. I know it is easy to say but hard to do. But we can't simply ignore science, finding an alternative solution for sustaining our economy is the best thing we can do.

[plvbob0070]

AFAIK, other countries are now allowing international flights while implementing restrictions. They can't really close international flights because it's one of the factors that's helping the economy. During the first few weeks/months of COVID, a lot of countries imposed restrictions on flights but they can't really do that for a long time.

It's a risk, but it's still okay as long as they are following protocols like if you travel from another country, you need to self-quarantine for 14 days before going out and that's what other countries are doing.

[Cnut237]

Costa Rica or indeed any country opening for international tourists is obviously a risk, but as the thread title indicates, this isn't just tourism, it is the balance that governments are striking between the economy and the health of its population. But this is what it has been about everywhere, from the beginning. We saw most countries implement lockdowns far too late, because they valued the economy over health... a stupid gamble, repeated around the world, as a swift lockdown/quarantining of people coming into the country would have meant small initial economic damage, but then no nationwide lockdown. The economic hit would have been much smaller if governments had been willing to take that small amount of damage. But they weren't, we saw over and over again that governments waited until it was too late, and then had to implement full lockdown across the country and suffered huge economic damage as a result. I think this exposes the incompetence of politicians. With a cycle of elections every few years, politicians have an entirely short-term view... and that's what hit them here. They waited until it was too late, because they didn't want to look further ahead and see what effects their inaction might have.

Some nations have learned the lessons better than others. As for whether opening for tourism is an acceptable risk... it depends largely on how it is managed. But given governments' recent records, I wouldn't be surprised to see a second wave of the pandemic.

[Janation]

Health should comes first before anything else hence it's the best way to stop and deal with pandemic so that the spread will be minimized, implementing safety protocols to all citizens would be a wise decisions. The economy can recover no matter what happens and the solutions of this is to wait for the vaccine to come out and should be available later this year and then economy can rise back again without endangering the health of the citizens.

Health should really come first, but that also leads to a problem.

If they will be making the lockdowns longer, that means they should be able to take care of the people that can't go to their jobs. They would focus their finance in health and without money coming in, that would be bad. I am not against this decision as long as they are strictly implementing the protocols to be followed.

[imstillthebest]

Health should comes first before anything else hence it's the best way to stop and deal with pandemic so that the spread will be minimized, implementing safety protocols to all citizens would be a wise decisions. The economy can recover no matter what happens and the solutions of this is to wait for the vaccine to come out and should be available later this year and then economy can rise back again without endangering the health of the citizens.

Health should really come first, but that also leads to a problem.

If they will be making the lockdowns longer, that means they should be able to take care of the people that can't go to their jobs. They would focus their finance in health and without money coming in, that would be bad. I am not against this decision as long as they are strictly implementing the protocols to be followed.

they dont totally stop people from working but only few are removed but now that the situation is more better than compare to when the start of the covid , they are slowly recruiting people again or hire people that that is destined to take a rest before .

 i dont also believed that governments are gonna get poor if they continue lockdowns but i think they have a good wealth reserve for this kind of situation  . this is better than they spend money on others