Everyone currently seems to be trying to do cost-benefit analysis on these restrictions. Not sure why, since the message is obvious, but let me try to spell it out. 1/
Suppose that if we simply allowed the virus to spread it would kill around 300,000 people in the UK - as lots of commentary seems to assume (NB I don't). That would be about 3-4 times as bad as the Hong Kong Flu of 1968 (which had virtually no discernable economic impacts). 2/
A rough rule of thumb for the economic value of a life saved in more conservative (ie higher value) parts of health-&-safety (eg transport) is about £1m. So avoiding 300k deaths would have a value of ~£300bn = ~15% of GDP. 3/
So if we saved 300k people that cld be worth it if the cost of doing so were less than 15% of GDP. Now, that isn't as simple as saying "How much GDP will be lost over the next 2 years?" and comparing that to 300k deaths. First, we wldn't stop 300k deaths. 4/
Some people are already dying & will continue to die despite the restrictions. And a loss of GDP on that scale wld *cause* deaths of other sorts - eg through foregone advances in investment & technology & nutrition. Actual net lives saved wld be much lower. 5/
Next, GDP wld be lost in the let-it-spread scenario as well as in the suppression scenario. If it were only 300k deaths, those GDP losses might be modest. But they wld occur. 6/
But most fundamentally the costs of the restrictions will be *way* higher than the lost GDP. Think abt it: how much wld people pay not to be kept in their homes for 2/3 of the times over the next 2 years? Welfare losses will exceed the GDP losses by maybe 2 or 3 times. 7/
So although rough estimates of the GDP losses during these restrictions indeed place them at ~15% of GDP if there are no feedback or international effects (which there wld be) the actual economic losses over 2 years, plus later economic scarring, are more like 50% of GDP. 8/
So costs of 50% of GDP vs net gains in lives saved at way less than 300k wld appear to imply these restrictions are nowhere near worth it. It wldn't even be vaguely close - barely worth analysing in any detail. 9/
But the message of that is not "So don't do it." The real message is that govts are not anticipating anything close to this scenario. 300k deaths vs 15/50% of GDP costs simply isn't the trade-off. To justify these measures, govts must be believing 1 or both of 2 things. 10/
They must believe the costs will be way lower or deaths will be way higher or both. The costs wld be way lower if therapies can be developed within a few months, so restrictions come off much more quickly. Deaths wld be way higher if NHS swamping = millions dead, not 300k. 11/
So, that's it. There's no way these measures, kept in place for years, cld be justified to prevent 300k deaths from CV. Govts must believe they won't be kept in place for more than a few months or that deaths avoided wld be in the millions, or both. 12/Ends.
PS - If it were really the case that almost everyone who died wld be v old, the value of a life saved wld be much lower than £1m, potentially as low as 1/5 of that. That would, of course, reinforce my message not undermine it.
