Economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, having won the Nobel Prize, propose confinement in December in order to "save Christmas".
Will we be able to celebrate Christmas as a family next December? Two Nobel Prize-winning economists, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, believe this is quite possible provided that the French confine themselves just before the end of year celebrations. Thanks to this, the risk of transmission of Covid-19 would then be considerably reduced.
This proposition "clear, uniform and transparent"would effectively reduce the risk of infection for the most vulnerable people, especially the elderly who remain the most affected by the disease, underline Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee in an article published this Saturday, September 26 in the daily Le Monde.
The married couple, who jointly won the 2019 Nobel Prize for their work on poverty reduction, suggested national re-containment "during the Advent period from December 1 to 20 ". According to them, this option would have a limited impact on schools and would be less harmful economically than"cancel Christmas". In addition, it would avoid a more drastic re-containment a few weeks later due to the contaminations during the holiday season. As for Christmas shopping, "they could be encouraged during the month of November", says the two economists.
For several weeks, France has observed an increase in contamination linked to Covid-19. While new, stricter measures were recently announced by Health Minister Olivier Veran, the increase in Covid-19 cases could force the government to institute a containment or even ban "trips and family reunions"during Christmas.
Especially since Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee do not imagine from "this autumn" the generalization "inexpensive testing"and "really easy to access" which would make it possible to identify carriers of the virus much faster, and to place them in quarantine.