Background Research in the COVID-19 pandemic focused on the health burden, thereby largely neglecting the potential harm to life from welfare losses. Objective This paper develops a model that compares the years of life lost (YLL) due to COVID-19 and the potential YLL due to the socioeconomic consequences of its containment. Methods It improves on existing estimates by conceptually disentangling YLL due to COVID-19 and socioeconomic status. By reconciling the normative life table approach with socioeconomic differences in life expectancy, it accounts for the fact that people with low socioeconomic status are hit particularly hard by the pandemic. The model also draws on estimates of socioeconomic differences in life expectancy to ascertain potential YLL due to income loss, school closures, and extreme poverty. Results Tentative results suggest that if only one-tenth of the current socioeconomic damage becomes permanent in the future, it may carry a higher YLL burden than COVID-19 in the more likely pandemic scenarios. The model further suggests that the socioeconomic harm outweighs the disease burden due to COVID-19 more quickly in poorer and more unequal societies. Most urgently, the substantial increase in extreme poverty needs immediate attention. Avoiding a relatively minor number of 4 million unemployed, 1 million extremely poor, and 2 million students with a higher learning loss may save a similar amount of life years as saving 1 million people from dying from COVID-19. Conclusions Primarily, the results illustrate the urgent need for redistributive policy interventions and global solidarity. In addition, the potentially high YLL burden from income and learning losses raises the burden of proof for the efficacy and necessity of school and business closures in the containment of the pandemic, especially where social safety nets are underdeveloped.
