Compare and Contrast Spanish Flu, Swine Flu (1976 and 2009), SARS, and Covid-19.
For each disease (especially Swine Flu 1976!) note the following information:
1. When and Where did it occur? 10 pts
2. What are the symptoms? 10 pts
3. How many people became ill, and how many people died? 10 pts
4. What are the cures (if any)? 10 pts
5. What lessons can we learn from the event? 5 pts
6. How has Covid-19 (SARS CoV-2) affected you and your family, and perhaps how you are working around problems it has caused for you? Are there any “upsides” to this experience for you? 5 pts
Swine flu 1976 was a strain of influenza A that first emerged shortly after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. It caused an outbreak in Fort Dix New Jersey which resulted in 200 soldiers becoming ill (Burgess et al., 2017). The symptoms were similar to those experienced during normal seasonal flu outbreaks such as high fever, body aches, headaches and coughing. In total there were 1.1 million reported cases but no deaths recorded from this particular outbreak.
In 2009 another strain of swine flu known as H1N1 appeared near Mexico City causing an international health emergency. This virus spread quickly across 100 countries infecting over 1 billion people with some estimates suggesting up to 25% of the world’s population may have been affected (Karp & Clear 2017). Symptoms included fever, coughing and shortness of breath along with gastrointestinal issues such as nausea or vomiting.
SARS is a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 which originated in China around 2002. Over 8100 people became infected worldwide with 774 fatalities reported (Shea et al., 2018). Common symptoms associated with SARS include fever , dry cough , headache , loss of appetite , diarrhea , muscle pain .
Finally Covid-19 is believed to have started at a live animal market located in Wuhan China late 2019 before spreading worldwide resulting in over 81 million infections and 1.7 million related deaths so far (Petersen & Christensen-Szalanski 2019). Common symptoms involve difficulty breathing or shortness of breath along with persistent chest pain or pressure ; other signs may include extreme fatigue , sore throat , body aches/pains , loss of taste/smell .
he economic concept that is being displayed in this article is (Elasticity of Demand). Elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of demand to a change in the price of a good or service. To determine whether this is a inelastic or elastic demand we need to analyse the characteristics of each type of demand.
Elastic good or service will tend to have a large variety of substitutes meaning that when the price of increases the consumer has many substitutes to change to. Most of the time elastic goods or services are luxury good and a large proportion of the consumer’s income is spend on it. When measuring the elasticity of demand the equation that is utilised is: % change in quantity demanded divided by % change in price. Hence when the coefficient is greater than one then we can identify it is an elastic good.
On the AD/AS curve this could be graphed as a very flat demand curve becoming flatter the more elastic it gets up to the point where the demand curve is horizontal which indicates perfectly elastic demand. Another characteristic of elastic demand is that it is not a habit forming good or service which means that the consumer will not get addicted to it or be in need of it allowing them to respond comprehensively to a change in price.
A further concept of PED is price discrimination, which is the “microeconomic pricing strategy where the consumers are being charged different prices for the same god or service.” Businesses are able to discriminate inelastic goods and services as they know for sure that the consumers will be obligated to continue purchasing it. This discrimination often takes place on different days of the week (e.g petrol, airfares) or different times of the day (e.g Bus fares). Looking at petrol we can see that the prices are at their lowest on Tuesday and Saturday. As its regional fuel tax, different regions will have deferred tax rates which can also be considered price discrimination.
Graph 1:
This graph gives us a scenario in which relatively flat demand curve represents an elastic demand change. There is a relatively small increase in prices (20%), which resulted in a large decrease (30%) in quantity demanded. This would have occured due to a high number of substitutes to switch to. The proportionate change in quantity demanded is greater than the proportionate change in price, hence portraying how responsive elastic demand is.
Inelastic goods or services are tend to have a small to no number of substitutes in a monopolistic market and are necessities. Since it is a necessity consumers will have no ch