- More Americans have died from Covid-19 under the current president than under the previous one
- The public-health community has proved incapable of quantitatively assessing trade-offs between the harms of prevention and the harms of disease.
- But the evidence shows that the U.S. experienced lower total harm in 2020 than did the nations of the European Union.
Since we have been hit by the pandemic , the government has a a major role in curbing its effect on the public. The Biden administration has gone through criticism as the there were more deaths during his first tenure, reports WSJ.
How the current government handling the pandemic?
As President Biden’s first year of handling the pandemic comes to a close, many of his most ardent critics are pointing to the ugly numbers:
- More Americans have died from Covid-19 under the current president than under the previous one,
- despite the prevalence of vaccines
- the development of other medical innovations.
But as the pandemic’s progression has made clear, public-health officials should aim to do more than merely minimize the spread of disease. They should seek to reduce the total harm caused by both infection and heavy-handed attempts to prevent it.
Reducing the incidence of the disease isn’t necessarily desirable if excessive prevention, in the form of lockdowns or school closures, is more costly to society than the damage done by an illness. We don’t close highways to minimize accidental deaths, despite the existence of dangerous drivers.
Covid hindering the economy and developmental policies
The public-health community has proved incapable of quantitatively assessing trade-offs between the harms of prevention and the harms of disease. This has hindered the development of policies that could have minimized the total harm to society from Covid-19.
Economic epidemiologists, by contrast, have for decades used quantitative methods to evaluate these harms by looking at them the same way they look at taxes.
The burden of a tax doesn’t fall solely on those who pay it directly. The costs of efforts at avoiding the disease must be quantified and tallied as well.
About the study
In early 2020, University of Chicago economists estimated that about 80% of the total damage from Covid came from prevention efforts that hindered economic activity, and only 20% from the direct effects of the disease itself.
This analysis motivated others to recommend that initial efforts to stop the spread should focus on older people, who are at higher risk of severe illness and not as active in the economy as younger people.
This would allow younger people to keep the economy going while limiting the spread of the disease among those most at risk from it. Some in the public health community, like the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, eventually saw the light.
Vaccines and treatments
Similarly, vaccines and treatments reduced the costs associated with getting sick—call it the “disease tax”—but also increased social and economic activity, allowing the infection to spread. Even if the disease tax is paid by more people, the costs are outpaced by the overall benefit derived from the subsequent tsunami of economic activity.
Biden’s accusation
Joe Biden accused President Trump during the campaign of getting Americans killed by refusing to clamp down completely on all economic activity.
But the evidence shows that the U.S. experienced lower total harm in 2020 than did the nations of the European Union. Now that he’s been president for a year and presided over so many Covid deaths himself, Mr. Biden surely understands how difficult it is to contain the spread of a highly contagious respiratory disease.
He should make the reduction in total harm his administration’s objective now—and that includes the harm done by lockdowns, school closings and unproductive restrictions on economic activity.
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Source : WSJ
