The choice is not whether to let the old die or let the young go broke. It's whether or not to avert mass severe illness of people of all ages — including the young — coupled with a meltdown of the health care system, leading to rippling social collapse, including economic ruin.
"We can't spend infinite money to avoid death" is plainly true! But as deployed against the shutdown, these arguments lack any sense of proportion. They could be equally deployed against a shutdown to save a projected 5 million lives, 10, 50. What body count would be enough?
This is a genuine question. This situation is not an abstraction, not a thought experiment. It's a real choice we have to make right now, and at the moment we have only two broad options, both incredibly costly and painful. But we have to pick one while we're creating others.
The case for the shutdown is not that saving even one life is worth it. It obviously wouldn't be.
It's that the scale of *this particular pandemic* is large enough to entail broad social, economic, human, moral, and political ruin that is worth unprecedented pain to stop.
It's that the scale of *this particular pandemic* is large enough to entail broad social, economic, human, moral, and political ruin that is worth unprecedented pain to stop.
It's also true that the shutdown itself is being implemented with no sense of proportion, and no coherent plan. This cannot go on, as I argue below.
But the government response was so delayed that it was the only choice left.
thenewatlantis.com/publications/w…
But the government response was so delayed that it was the only choice left.
thenewatlantis.com/publications/w…
None of the end-the-shutdown pieces I've read engage the death projections, or address what should be done instead. How would the economy sustain 10 million working adults needing near-simultaneous hospitalization while doctors are dying en masse? It just isn't addressed at all.
Please see Scott Gottlieb's short thread for further on this. He's the single most important follow for anyone on Twitter right now.
"My personal opinion is the economy wouldn’t tank so much if we had a plan of when and how to relax this shutdown. I think most Americans would say ok I can do this if I know there is a time limit on it."
— someone who commented on my piece on FB
— someone who commented on my piece on FB
