COVID-19 Could Kill as Many as 30,000 Canadians and 15 Million World Wide: ANU Study

A new study from the Australian National University says in the worst-case scenario, the coronavirus death toll could exceed 68 million and the global GDP loss could reach US$9 trillion.

The modelling used in the study examined how the COVID-19 outbreak could impact 6 sectors and 24 countries and regions and found that even a contained outbreak could significantly impact the global economy in the short run.

Even in a best-case of the pandemic scenario, the modelling revealed that COVID-19 could kill in the first years as many as 15 million people and a US$2.4-trillion loss to the global GDP.

For Canada, researches estimate in a best-case scenario there would be 30,000 deaths and a US$32 billion loss in the GDP. In a worst-case scenario, the death toll could exceed 130,000 and the GDP loss could reach US$128 billion.

Table 9 shows that for even the lowest of the seven pandemic scenarios (S04), there are estimated to be around 15 million deaths.

Tables 11 provides a summary of the overall GDP loss for each country/region under the seven scenarios. The results in Table 11 are converted into billions of $2020US.

View the paper at: Australian National University