PURPOSE: In response to covid-19, governments have applied stringent public health measures but these were mostly not subjected to economic evaluation. Although lack of time was a factor, the key reason was that health economics had not yet developed the requisite methodologies. Many new approaches to the economic evaluation of covid-19 public health responses have now emerged. Our leader and discussants, who have contributed to these developments, will review their strengths and weaknesses, and present the latest breakthroughs in this fast moving and vital field.

DESCRIPTION: Dr Thom will briefly review public health measures introduced across Europe, and their health and economic impacts. He will highlight the general absence of input from health economists. Dr Zala will present emerging approaches to the economic evaluation of responses to covid-19; other discussants will interact with Dr Zala to critique these methods. Approaches will include cost-utility analyses that assign utilities to cases, hospitalisations, and deaths and then use infectious disease models and/or observed data to evaluate the impact of public health measures; macroeconomic optimal control methods; and infectious disease models linked to impacts on gross domestic product. Dr Keogh-Brown will discuss the LSHTM’s pioneering macroeconomic Computable General Equilibrium modelling approach to pandemic-related policy analysis. Other discussants will raise objections. Dr Keogh-Brown will respond with possibilities for synthesising methodologies, pointing to potential future research to integrate health economics of covid-19 and pandemic modelling. Professor Vassall will discuss the different methods from a health and public policy perspective. Dr Thom will close with a conclusion that health economics is up to the job, but that much work needs to be done. We will use live polling to assess the acceptability of each approach and identify key concerns about their use.