Fairview4Life wrote:Count excess mortality if you want to count deaths. But that’s also beside the point. The extreme measures are to try and reduce the healthcare load and stop people from dying from not only Covid but a million other things people die from everyday because they couldn’t get quality care.
Opening up now will not save the economy. Not implementing quarantines and isolation would not have kept the economy running smoothly. Like a fifth of all NY first responders were out sick a few weeks ago. Grocery store workers have been getting sick and dying. A giant pork processing plant in South Dakota had more than a fifth of its workforce test positive and a bunch of people die.
If everyone went back to normal, which wouldn’t happen anyway as restaurants and movies etc would still be empty even if they were allowed to open, but if they did, that isn’t saving the economy. Having a huge chunk of the workforce out sick isn’t going to help a business stay afloat. Trying to pretend that if we just tried to weather the storm and let a bunch of people die quickly (other people, naturally), everything would have continued normally is just extremely silly. The economy still tanks in a pandemic even without restrictions. You can see that in states that tried to remain open for business. Even supposedly safe “rural” ones. This debate is just so stupid.
Print money. Let businesses keep people on the payroll while they stay home. Freeze rents and mortgages. Dramatically increase testing, tracing and isolation. Finally figure out if previously sick people are immune. Start slowly opening things up with social distancing rules in place beginning with open air parks etc.. Get a vaccine made and distributed. That’s how we should be proceeding. None of that has changed in the past 2 months.
Good point about excess deaths. Many covid patients are dying without ever going to the hospital. Also, far fewer people are going to the hospital if they suspect they might be having a heart attack, which is likely resulting in more deaths. Here the issue is not the actual healthcare capacity, which can still accommodate these people, but the perception of it. The longer we keep telling people we need to do everything possible to limit demands on the healthcare system the more this will happen.
I also don't claim the economy would go back to 100% normal if we lifted restrictions. Of course some people would still be scared to go out. But more people would go out and spend money and do work than are currently doing so, so of course the economic impact would be lesser.
As far as printing money, I agree that's what governments need to be doing to compensate people as long as they are ordering them not to work. But it isnt free, one day we will have to pay it back or inflate it away. There will need to be serious budget cuts in the future to pay this back, and given we spend most of our budget on healthcare that means healthcare cuts, which ultimately means lives. Your (other people, naturally) dig is just as applicable here... covid deaths are easy to see right now, but why should we care so much less about the less specifically identifiable, but very real, deaths we are causing with our policies in other ways?
This is clearly the most consequential public policy issue of my lifetime (I'm 32), to say that debate about it is stupid seems extremely dangerous. Now more than ever we need to question our leaders to make sure their decisions are as good as can be. I would say that even if I thought leaders were currently making perfect decisions.
