Author(s)

Zihan Zheng

Corresponding Author

Zihan Zheng

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan has spread rapidly across the country, and many oversea countries have also identified some confirmed cases. To prevent further spread of the epidemic, Wuhan has sealed off the city from all outside contact. The purpose of this study is to estimate the total costs of quarantine in Wuhan. Because the outbreak has not over yet, this article made educated estimations based on past data and referred to a model to calculate the number of contacts and infected cases. By summing the administrative costs, losses in tourism & hotel and catering & export & public transportation & entertainment industries and lost productivity, the aggregate costs of quarantine in Wuhan is around 70 billion yuan. This result provides a general idea of how the tertiary industry will be impacted and is useful for government and companies to adjust financial deficit and future budget so as to alleviate the influence of COVID-19.

Keywords

COVID-19; Wuhan; Quarantine costs; Tertiary industry; Economic impact