Save the people, save the economy - A catch 22.

While I appreciate the sentiment that it's easier to fix the economy than it is to bring people back to life, it's just such a huge misconception to say that we can separate the two that I can't be quiet about it. The economy just is people. It's the name we've given to people creating value through consumption, trade, and production choices (whether the economy is capitalist, socialist, agrarian, etc.). If a lot of people die, the economy will be badly hurt. People are not like inputs into some sort of engine. We are irreplaceable and we are valuable to one another.

We were not prepared to react the way that countries like South Korea have and so are presented with a horrific choice. Even if the right decision seems obvious to you, it is and it should be a hard one to make.

It doesn't follow from the fact that letting people die hurts the economy that restricting economic choices should be a decision taken lightly. Even if you care not one whit about civil liberties and economic freedom because, dammit, you care about saving lives!...sorry. We can't just write off the economy because it is people and the value we create feeds us, provides us with medicine, and finds new and better ways to do those things. Some people, on the margin, will die because we are stopping the value creation that might have saved them. Your heart should ache to know that this is the decision we're making, even if you think it's the right one. Sometimes steep costs are worth paying.

And yet many who realize that restricting the economy costs lives are behaving badly, too. Some people seem determined to give the impression that if lives are lost either way, the only choice is whether we want economic growth or not. This is absurd. Nothing suggests that the two expected death (and sickness) tolls are comparable. An uncontained pandemic is going to afflict and kill a lot of people. And they are--once again, this cannot be stressed enough--the economy. Pointing out that there is a cost to slowing the economy is not the same as arguing that we shouldn't slow the economy. Sometimes steep costs are worth paying.

Besides, it's not really a choice between two options, but from a menu of policy strategies aimed at containing the spread, flattening the curve, expanding treatment capacity, and minimizing deaths. Agreeing on the goal doesn't tell us which policies best achieve it. Worse information is likely to lead to worse policies. And the only thing about which everyone seems to agree is that bad policy costs suffering that could have been avoided and lives that could have been saved. We need to be better at this.