Critics of reopening the economy (or conversely supporters of closures) consistently and relentlessly accuse their opponents of putting profits before people. Democratic Representative Shalala put it thusly I think that what the president has been saying about getting back at Easter time is both dangerous and immoral. And let me say that I know of no he defies ethical standards. No American believes that we should choose the economy over human life and thats whats at stake here. And the president is putting human life at risk because he wants the economy to get back and he simply its literally immoral for him to do that." Simply put if you want to reopen the economy and allow people to go back to work you are a monster. Only those who want a complete shutdown of the entirety of human life have any human decency. While other critics of reopening are more nuanced or subtle the underlying message remains it is immoral or even evil to reopen the economy.
But this cartoonish view of the world their good to our evil ignores that every action and every inaction has costs. It is not the choice between doing nothing which lets millions die and doing anything which magically transforms sadness into having cake and cookies. Thus it is not at all clear that propnents of shutdown have an actual moral high ground to stand upon. The shutdown is not a cost-free endeavor but itself has significant costs. Those on the side of angels are deliberately blind to this and aggressively seek to minimize the human impact of their dictat decisions for millions. Doing nothing they insist will have untold consequences. If they choose the epidemic hundreds of thousands will die. In some countries millions according to Tomas Pueyo of medium.com. Clearly we must stay the course no matter how painful! Those demanding continued inertia dont just dispute their opponents they impugn their motives for wanting to weigh the costs and benefits of the continued lockdowns. We should not examine anything just accept their blind assurances at face value.
That life is inherently risky never occurs to anyone in this debate. Driving is one of the riskiest behaviors we engage in that costs almost 40000 lives a year and causes 4.4 million hospitalizations not to mention billions in economic damages and millions of less serious injuries. Yet millions every day make the decision that the benefits of automobile travel outweigh the substantial risks of death or injury. Many jobs entail significant risks of death and injury and compensate accordingly. Living in certain areas carries significant risk of robbery and homicide which people endure because they have no viable economic alternative. Life average everyday activities carries risk. And we all accept certain risks as normal. It is not just undesireable to try and protect people from all risk as an economic matter it is impossible. And attempts to do so create new risks themselves.
The very reason that the proponents of the restrictions are often so vehement in their attacks on their opponents is that the bans cannot truly pass muster under any measure of cost analysis. It is not a matter of life versus money and boredom versus activity. It is life and health of one group of citizens versus life and health of another. While the ethicist Peter Sanger goes too far in saying that the lives of the elderly arent worth even a mild inconvenience to the rest of us neither are the restrictions a mild inconvenience. Both action and inaction here cost human life. If the cost in human life is higher to acting than inaction then action is immoral.
We are told that doing nothing will cost us 200000 lives. Of course as previously explained in earlier articles that number is sheer nonsense just as is the 30000 current death toll. We have no accurate count of what the death toll is because the counters keep changing their measure and overincluding deaths from other causes. The mortality rate the number of dead the costs of the disease are all exaggerated for various reasons. It is irrelevant to speculate why or to attack the motives of those who do so. The why is irrelevant; that it happens is a fact. This distorts the costs and the benefits to the shutdowns. As cold as it may sound few people would support a complete shutdown to save 100 or 1000 people. Only by ballooning the numbers can any support for these measures be obtained. 40000 people die every year from automobile accidents and the highways remain open after all. As Walter Williams has noted we could drop these numbers to zero by instituting a 5 mile an hour speed limit but we do not do so. The cost simply is not worth it. Getting accurate corona numbers likewise would hinder the great humanitarian effort.
Yet even these imaginary numbers pale in comparison to the actual costs of acting. The first and most obvious casualty is the ability of millions to work. While economists and insulated intellectuals sniff at mere economic concerns for those who cant work they cannot afford food rent medicine and other essentials in life. The ability to make money IS the ability to be healthy. These are not just connected they are the same thing. There is no difference between economic welfare and health. To say that we need focus on one over the other is delusional. Either someone provides for the individuals economic needs or they can starve to death in an alley somewhere. Their basic needs will not materialize out of thin air. Stripping millions of the ability to provide for themselves puts each and every affected individual at greater risk than they would be of corona. A one time 1200 check most of which have not yet arrived will not suffice. These risks are far more severe to children who have relied on school meals to get them through the day. Many children receive the majority of their nutrients from out of the house meals; many families could not feed their children three meals a day even in the best of times. The UN has warned this could lead to hundreds of thousands of addition deaths to children alone. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/04/16/un-coronavirus-depression-could-kill-hundreds-of-thousands-of-children-this-year/#1c005f6a3e16)
Many charities that remain open are overwhelmed with the sheer number of those who need help. Food banks and other services to help those at risk get through this are running low. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html) This will make it hard for many of the temporarily furloughed to find services. For those who find themselves on the street their options are extremely limited. Homeless services are either closing or limiting the services they provide in wake of the virus. (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/homeless-shelters/plan-prepare-respond.html) This leaves tens of thousands without any access to food shelter or medical care. This leads to malnourishment and potentially even death. And as many on the street have medical or mental issues this leaves them at risk for complications they otherwise wouldnt suffer. To add to this number of the displaced is hard to justify.
Even without starvation or further complications economic downturns lead to loss of millions of years of life expectency in the US. Some studies have found recession cuts average life span of the citizen by 6 to 9 months (https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/04/starting-work-in-a-recession-affects-people-for-their-whole-lives). Multiplied by millions this clearly outweighs 5 years times 200000 (the average amount of lifetime lost).
Worse despite our relative affluence nearly a fifth of us suffer with anxiety and depression disorders with 7 having a serious episode. That is approximately 62 million and 7 million american respectively. The affects of shutdown: isolation helplessness loneliness and the like exacerbate these symptoms significantly. This has led to significantly higher rates of suicidal thoughts. Suicide rates rise and fall almost identically with unemployment. In Los Angeles alone there were 1500 corona related suicide hotline calls in March which is itself a 75 over the previous months total (https://newsone.com/3921332/coronavirus-related-suicides-amid-anxiety/). Contrast this with the 595 deaths Los Angeles county has supposedly suffered altogether. Because an economic recession alone leads to increased suicide rates the current drastic measures are likely to have a much higher death toll than any prior recession simply because of the added isolation of the stay at home order. (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-usa-cost/) Alcohol and drug use has already skyrocketed during this time period (https://www.newsweek.com/us-alcohol-sales-increase-55-percent-one-week-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-1495510 and https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-coronavirus-is-hurting-drug-and-alcohol-recovery/) which leads both to negative health consequences of its own and is a sign of increased depression.
Such feelings do not always focus inwards to self destruction. These factors lead to significant strife in families and carry the potential to not only exacerbate already abuse situations into tragedy but to create new ones. And indeed domestic violence calls have gone up nearly a quarter according to Reuters already cited. Not surprisingly those cities that have more restrictions have higher rates of reported violence and countries like France who have tighter restrictions than ours face worse outcomes. (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/coronavirus-restrictions-highlight-lgbtq-domestic-abuse-crisis-n1186376) this is simple common sense mentally ill or violent people put under stress become more mentally ill or violent. Adding stressors and removing social support nets leads to negative outcomes in the most vulnerable and at risk communities. If as we are constantly told only 20-30 of victims report their abuse the new numbers are truly terrifying! Again young and vulnerable victims are most at risk (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-child-abuse.html).
This comes at a time when police are cutting back on arresting those who rob vandalize and loot even though these crimes also victimize the vulnerable. While we overcriminalize and over-arrest in this country for minor offenses and those that should not be crimes at all leaving the poor and destitute with no recourse is hardly the right solution. (https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-implement-sweeping-policy-prepare-coronavirus-spread/story?id=69672368) Under any standard robbery and vandalism cause harm to others albeit financial. Why should those already out of a job be forced to spend more money they dont have to fix or replace their cars replace their doors and windows or do without their modest pocket change and credit cards simply because police and judges do not want to be bothered? At the same time efforts to solve rape and murder have declined and the justice system has begun releasing prisoners who genuinely belong in prison instead of judiciously choosing the correct NON-violent offenders. (https://abcnews.go.com/US/alleged-violent-offenders-poised-release-rikers-island-due/story?id=69863436) This creates even more victims in an already injured society. And sadly the most serious crime rates have risen even while overall crime has fallen (https://time.com/5818553/gun-violence-chicago-coronavirus/ and https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/490373-attacks-on-asian-americans-at-about-100-per-day-due-to) Given that police are simply not responding to unimportant crimes it is questionable whether they are actually falling or people have stopped reporting them but one thing is clear murder assault and domestic abuse are up. Way up.
Governors have also demanded that hospitals shut down all non-esential and elective surgeries and procedures. Unfortunately while many assume this means cosmetic surgery (which isnt done at hospitals) it instead means any procedure that can be scheduled. The vast majority of life-saving essential procedures fall into this category including but not limited to: chemotherapy organ transplants heart bypasses cancer removal and many many more. Doctors have warned that this puts more than one million people a month at risk. Thats right Million with an m. Every month five times as many americans are put at serious risk as the total estimated death toll of doing nothing against the coronavirus. If one percent of that number die we are looking at 10000 a month much higher than the coronavirus is claiming. If its five percent the monthly death toll will dwarf the total death count of the virus. This is a sobering picture. People are being turned away from hospitals for non-corona cases as the hospitals resources are being shunted to other things. (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-surges-non-covid-medical-emergencies-take-back-seat-putting-n1175871) Drug testing and clinical trials to create new drugs and therapies for any other disease have been halted completely. This is bizarre as heart disease diabetes and cancer all claim more people every year than the coronavirus is projected to under the worst case scenerio. Halting progress on thousands of other diseases to limit the spread of corona is poor resource management even accepting the doomsday scenerio. Prioritizing coronavirus over heart attack at an emergency room will never be justified.
This loss of human life and impact on human health IS the cost of action (though it is not the ONLY cost of action). To save 200000 people mostly the elderly and disabled a few extra years of life we are depriving millions of those years instead. We are killing hundreds of thousands through our action instead of through our inaction and negatively impacting the rest as well. These costs what little they are discussed are not some other news story they are our responsibility as they wouldnt have happened if the economy had not been shut down and people had not been quarantined in their homes. We dont discuss those because they are not the responsibility of some faceless implacible virus/cause of the minute but due to bad policy choices of our leaders spurred on by the panic of uninformed voters. No one wants to admit culpability for death. So we are given instead the false narrative of millions dead through inaction or mild boredom. This relieves not just the viewing audience of its culpability but the actors as well. Or more accurately it makes them feel it does.
We have in reality a Hobsons Choice of the kind given to school children. We can stand idly by and watch a man we can see get run over by a train or we can flick a switch and ten people we will never see will get run over instead. While in an academic setting the choice is obvious deliberately killing ten to save one is a grossly immoral act the emotional pull of the mans pleas for help reach us when he is in our sight. Therefore too many of us are willing to pull that switch even though the costs of doing so are far worse than doing nothing. Here the balance is identical. Even accepting the incorrect doomsday predictions given to us by the media the human cost of shut down far outweighs the human cost of inaction. This is not a heartless decision. Rather it is an acknowledgement that no number no matter how high it is justifies killing an even greater number to stop it. While we may not see the victims of our consequences the families of the dead and injured are just as affected and just as devastated by the loss of their loved ones as those who die by coronavirus. Pretending that these victims do not exist and that there are no consequences to the continued shutdown especially from those who know otherwise is a deeply immoral and callous action. While many on the right are far too willing to cede the moral high ground to their opponents it is clear they do not deserve any such concessions. It is those who wish to reopen the economy who seek to allieve human suffering and limit death not their opponents. It is irrelevant what they profess their motives to be and indeed what those motives really. All that matters is results and they are not pretty. As we go forward towards reopening our economy the question is not truly can we afford to reopen its can we afford not to?
Critics of reopening the economy (or conversely supporters of closures) consistently and relentlessly accuse their opponents of putting profits before people. Democratic Representative Shalala put it thusly I think that what the president has been saying about getting back at Easter time is both dangerous and immoral. And let me say that I know of no he defies ethical standards. No American believes that we should choose the economy over human life and thats whats at stake here. And the president is putting human life at risk because he wants the economy to get back and he simply its literally immoral for him to do that." Simply put if you want to reopen the economy and allow people to go back to work you are a monster. Only those who want a complete shutdown of the entirety of human life have any human decency. While other critics of reopening are more nuanced or subtle the underlying message remains it is immoral or even evil to reopen the economy.
But this cartoonish view of the world their good to our evil ignores that every action and every inaction has costs. It is not the choice between doing nothing which lets millions die and doing anything which magically transforms sadness into having cake and cookies. Thus it is not at all clear that propnents of shutdown have an actual moral high ground to stand upon. The shutdown is not a cost-free endeavor but itself has significant costs. Those on the side of angels are deliberately blind to this and aggressively seek to minimize the human impact of their dictat decisions for millions. Doing nothing they insist will have untold consequences. If they choose the epidemic hundreds of thousands will die. In some countries millions according to Tomas Pueyo of medium.com. Clearly we must stay the course no matter how painful! Those demanding continued inertia dont just dispute their opponents they impugn their motives for wanting to weigh the costs and benefits of the continued lockdowns. We should not examine anything just accept their blind assurances at face value.
That life is inherently risky never occurs to anyone in this debate. Driving is one of the riskiest behaviors we engage in that costs almost 40000 lives a year and causes 4.4 million hospitalizations not to mention billions in economic damages and millions of less serious injuries. Yet millions every day make the decision that the benefits of automobile travel outweigh the substantial risks of death or injury. Many jobs entail significant risks of death and injury and compensate accordingly. Living in certain areas carries significant risk of robbery and homicide which people endure because they have no viable economic alternative. Life average everyday activities carries risk. And we all accept certain risks as normal. It is not just undesireable to try and protect people from all risk as an economic matter it is impossible. And attempts to do so create new risks themselves.
The very reason that the proponents of the restrictions are often so vehement in their attacks on their opponents is that the bans cannot truly pass muster under any measure of cost analysis. It is not a matter of life versus money and boredom versus activity. It is life and health of one group of citizens versus life and health of another. While the ethicist Peter Sanger goes too far in saying that the lives of the elderly arent worth even a mild inconvenience to the rest of us neither are the restrictions a mild inconvenience. Both action and inaction here cost human life. If the cost in human life is higher to acting than inaction then action is immoral.
We are told that doing nothing will cost us 200000 lives. Of course as previously explained in earlier articles that number is sheer nonsense just as is the 30000 current death toll. We have no accurate count of what the death toll is because the counters keep changing their measure and overincluding deaths from other causes. The mortality rate the number of dead the costs of the disease are all exaggerated for various reasons. It is irrelevant to speculate why or to attack the motives of those who do so. The why is irrelevant; that it happens is a fact. This distorts the costs and the benefits to the shutdowns. As cold as it may sound few people would support a complete shutdown to save 100 or 1000 people. Only by ballooning the numbers can any support for these measures be obtained. 40000 people die every year from automobile accidents and the highways remain open after all. As Walter Williams has noted we could drop these numbers to zero by instituting a 5 mile an hour speed limit but we do not do so. The cost simply is not worth it. Getting accurate corona numbers likewise would hinder the great humanitarian effort.
Yet even these imaginary numbers pale in comparison to the actual costs of acting. The first and most obvious casualty is the ability of millions to work. While economists and insulated intellectuals sniff at mere economic concerns for those who cant work they cannot afford food rent medicine and other essentials in life. The ability to make money IS the ability to be healthy. These are not just connected they are the same thing. There is no difference between economic welfare and health. To say that we need focus on one over the other is delusional. Either someone provides for the individuals economic needs or they can starve to death in an alley somewhere. Their basic needs will not materialize out of thin air. Stripping millions of the ability to provide for themselves puts each and every affected individual at greater risk than they would be of corona. A one time 1200 check most of which have not yet arrived will not suffice. These risks are far more severe to children who have relied on school meals to get them through the day. Many children receive the majority of their nutrients from out of the house meals; many families could not feed their children three meals a day even in the best of times. The UN has warned this could lead to hundreds of thousands of addition deaths to children alone. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/04/16/un-coronavirus-depression-could-kill-hundreds-of-thousands-of-children-this-year/#1c005f6a3e16)
Many charities that remain open are overwhelmed with the sheer number of those who need help. Food banks and other services to help those at risk get through this are running low. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html) This will make it hard for many of the temporarily furloughed to find services. For those who find themselves on the street their options are extremely limited. Homeless services are either closing or limiting the services they provide in wake of the virus. (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/homeless-shelters/plan-prepare-respond.html) This leaves tens of thousands without any access to food shelter or medical care. This leads to malnourishment and potentially even death. And as many on the street have medical or mental issues this leaves them at risk for complications they otherwise wouldnt suffer. To add to this number of the displaced is hard to justify.
Even without starvation or further complications economic downturns lead to loss of millions of years of life expectency in the US. Some studies have found recession cuts average life span of the citizen by 6 to 9 months (https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/04/starting-work-in-a-recession-affects-people-for-their-whole-lives). Multiplied by millions this clearly outweighs 5 years times 200000 (the average amount of lifetime lost).
Worse despite our relative affluence nearly a fifth of us suffer with anxiety and depression disorders with 7 having a serious episode. That is approximately 62 million and 7 million american respectively. The affects of shutdown: isolation helplessness loneliness and the like exacerbate these symptoms significantly. This has led to significantly higher rates of suicidal thoughts. Suicide rates rise and fall almost identically with unemployment. In Los Angeles alone there were 1500 corona related suicide hotline calls in March which is itself a 75 over the previous months total (https://newsone.com/3921332/coronavirus-related-suicides-amid-anxiety/). Contrast this with the 595 deaths Los Angeles county has supposedly suffered altogether. Because an economic recession alone leads to increased suicide rates the current drastic measures are likely to have a much higher death toll than any prior recession simply because of the added isolation of the stay at home order. (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-usa-cost/) Alcohol and drug use has already skyrocketed during this time period (https://www.newsweek.com/us-alcohol-sales-increase-55-percent-one-week-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-1495510 and https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-coronavirus-is-hurting-drug-and-alcohol-recovery/) which leads both to negative health consequences of its own and is a sign of increased depression.
Such feelings do not always focus inwards to self destruction. These factors lead to significant strife in families and carry the potential to not only exacerbate already abuse situations into tragedy but to create new ones. And indeed domestic violence calls have gone up nearly a quarter according to Reuters already cited. Not surprisingly those cities that have more restrictions have higher rates of reported violence and countries like France who have tighter restrictions than ours face worse outcomes. (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/coronavirus-restrictions-highlight-lgbtq-domestic-abuse-crisis-n1186376) this is simple common sense mentally ill or violent people put under stress become more mentally ill or violent. Adding stressors and removing social support nets leads to negative outcomes in the most vulnerable and at risk communities. If as we are constantly told only 20-30 of victims report their abuse the new numbers are truly terrifying! Again young and vulnerable victims are most at risk (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirus-child-abuse.html).
This comes at a time when police are cutting back on arresting those who rob vandalize and loot even though these crimes also victimize the vulnerable. While we overcriminalize and over-arrest in this country for minor offenses and those that should not be crimes at all leaving the poor and destitute with no recourse is hardly the right solution. (https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-implement-sweeping-policy-prepare-coronavirus-spread/story?id=69672368) Under any standard robbery and vandalism cause harm to others albeit financial. Why should those already out of a job be forced to spend more money they dont have to fix or replace their cars replace their doors and windows or do without their modest pocket change and credit cards simply because police and judges do not want to be bothered? At the same time efforts to solve rape and murder have declined and the justice system has begun releasing prisoners who genuinely belong in prison instead of judiciously choosing the correct NON-violent offenders. (https://abcnews.go.com/US/alleged-violent-offenders-poised-release-rikers-island-due/story?id=69863436) This creates even more victims in an already injured society. And sadly the most serious crime rates have risen even while overall crime has fallen (https://time.com/5818553/gun-violence-chicago-coronavirus/ and https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/490373-attacks-on-asian-americans-at-about-100-per-day-due-to) Given that police are simply not responding to unimportant crimes it is questionable whether they are actually falling or people have stopped reporting them but one thing is clear murder assault and domestic abuse are up. Way up.
Governors have also demanded that hospitals shut down all non-esential and elective surgeries and procedures. Unfortunately while many assume this means cosmetic surgery (which isnt done at hospitals) it instead means any procedure that can be scheduled. The vast majority of life-saving essential procedures fall into this category including but not limited to: chemotherapy organ transplants heart bypasses cancer removal and many many more. Doctors have warned that this puts more than one million people a month at risk. Thats right Million with an m. Every month five times as many americans are put at serious risk as the total estimated death toll of doing nothing against the coronavirus. If one percent of that number die we are looking at 10000 a month much higher than the coronavirus is claiming. If its five percent the monthly death toll will dwarf the total death count of the virus. This is a sobering picture. People are being turned away from hospitals for non-corona cases as the hospitals resources are being shunted to other things. (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-surges-non-covid-medical-emergencies-take-back-seat-putting-n1175871) Drug testing and clinical trials to create new drugs and therapies for any other disease have been halted completely. This is bizarre as heart disease diabetes and cancer all claim more people every year than the coronavirus is projected to under the worst case scenerio. Halting progress on thousands of other diseases to limit the spread of corona is poor resource management even accepting the doomsday scenerio. Prioritizing coronavirus over heart attack at an emergency room will never be justified.
This loss of human life and impact on human health IS the cost of action (though it is not the ONLY cost of action). To save 200000 people mostly the elderly and disabled a few extra years of life we are depriving millions of those years instead. We are killing hundreds of thousands through our action instead of through our inaction and negatively impacting the rest as well. These costs what little they are discussed are not some other news story they are our responsibility as they wouldnt have happened if the economy had not been shut down and people had not been quarantined in their homes. We dont discuss those because they are not the responsibility of some faceless implacible virus/cause of the minute but due to bad policy choices of our leaders spurred on by the panic of uninformed voters. No one wants to admit culpability for death. So we are given instead the false narrative of millions dead through inaction or mild boredom. This relieves not just the viewing audience of its culpability but the actors as well. Or more accurately it makes them feel it does.
We have in reality a Hobsons Choice of the kind given to school children. We can stand idly by and watch a man we can see get run over by a train or we can flick a switch and ten people we will never see will get run over instead. While in an academic setting the choice is obvious deliberately killing ten to save one is a grossly immoral act the emotional pull of the mans pleas for help reach us when he is in our sight. Therefore too many of us are willing to pull that switch even though the costs of doing so are far worse than doing nothing. Here the balance is identical. Even accepting the incorrect doomsday predictions given to us by the media the human cost of shut down far outweighs the human cost of inaction. This is not a heartless decision. Rather it is an acknowledgement that no number no matter how high it is justifies killing an even greater number to stop it. While we may not see the victims of our consequences the families of the dead and injured are just as affected and just as devastated by the loss of their loved ones as those who die by coronavirus. Pretending that these victims do not exist and that there are no consequences to the continued shutdown especially from those who know otherwise is a deeply immoral and callous action. While many on the right are far too willing to cede the moral high ground to their opponents it is clear they do not deserve any such concessions. It is those who wish to reopen the economy who seek to allieve human suffering and limit death not their opponents. It is irrelevant what they profess their motives to be and indeed what those motives really. All that matters is results and they are not pretty. As we go forward towards reopening our economy the question is not truly can we afford to reopen its can we afford not to?