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> Denunciations of that sort cast the lockdown debate as a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy camp. But the actual trade-offs are not

> Denunciations of that sort cast the lockdown debate as a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy camp. But the actual trade-offs are not straightforward. The irony here is that these sentences are correct, but the author comes to exactly the wrong conclusion from them. There is no battle between a pro-human and pro-economy camp, because if we just threw the doors open and let the virus rage out of control, everyone would end up staying home out of fear anyway and there'd be no difference, in terms of economic damange, from a state-mandated shutdowns now. Note that there is nothing preventing you from flying right now, but the planes are still empty. Or how the government is ordering meat processing plants to reopen but they are still running way below capacity because workers are just staying home so they don't get sick. It is not a choice between economic damage and lives lost, it's a choice between an orderly lockdown now and a chaotic de facto lockdown later, except the latter has a lot more people dying - the economic damage is inevitable either way. Do not take shutdown skeptics seriously, they don't deserve it.

dkfjdkfjda 7y ago
That's not what the article says, though. It merely says that lockdowns do have consequences too, particularly prolonged ones, and we should consider those too. But such discussion is largely impossible because the whole issue got framed as good vs. evil, and even just questioning some aspects of the lockdown (say, school closures) gets you labeled as someone who essentially wants to murder vulnerable people. FWIW I do live in a country which is in lockdown for ~2m now, and I do think it was the right thing to do. But it's not really feasible to stay in indefinite lockdown - not just because of economy, but because of impact on public health etc.

dkfjdkfjda 7y ago

That's not what the article says, though. It merely says that lockdowns do have consequences too, particularly prolonged ones, and we should consider those too. But such discussion is largely impossible because the whole issue got framed as good vs. evil, and even just questioning some aspects of the lockdown (say, school closures) gets you labeled as someone who essentially wants to murder vulnerable people. FWIW I do live in a country which is in lockdown for ~2m now, and I do think it was the right thing to do. But it's not really feasible to stay in indefinite lockdown - not just because of economy, but because of impact on public health etc.