Uche Usim, Abuja
Nigeria has lost a whopping $373.5 billion to the rampaging COVID-19 pestilence due to lockdowns and other devastating effects on the economy.
This was revealed by a study on the impact of the pandemic by the Copenhagen Consensus Centre in collaboration with the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS).
The study added that the moderate social distancing and school closures policies by Nigeria reduced deaths by 12,000, while saving 102,000 people from dying from the disease. Another 17,500 from better HIV treatment and fewer traffic deaths.
It stated that social distancing caused an excess of 107,000 deaths from malaria, tuberculosis and child malnutrition because of less health outreach, movement restrictions and economic tremors.
The study further noted: “more life years would be lost than gained, as deaths avoided from COVID-19 are likely to be of older people, whereas deaths from the remaining causes are likely to be of younger people. Closing schools for nine months would mean that each child receives nine months less education. This would make each child less productive in their adult years. In total, it is estimated that the social cost of closing schools for Nigeria could be around $5.7 billion – the present value of income loss for more than 25 million children over the next 50 years”, the report noted.