COVID-19 and Sophie’s Choice

In an hour or so I will head into the office to begin week 7 of the Coronavirus lockdown here in the Old Dominion. Over the weekend some dude from the State Health Department let slip his view that the stay at home order would probably be in place for two years!! When the manure began hitting the fan, he quickly walked his words back with a weaselly denial, the kind that bureaucrats are famous for. Policy makers in Virginia...Virginia...are rumbling about two more years of lock down, a state ranked 18th out of 50 states by confirmed cases of the virus. Question: How many businesses with less than 50 employees do you know who could survive two more years of being closed? Answer: Zero. 

So, the difficult question that policy makers have to address is, in order to save as many lives as possible from the Coronavirus, how much economic destruction is tolerable? This involves the philosophically difficult question of attaching a financial value on a human life. Some will say that it is impossible to assign a monetary value to a human life since every human life has infinite possibility. On the other hand, we make these decisions all the time whenever cost/benefit analysis is done on public safety questions. For example, governments at all levels in this country know that deaths from automobile accidents could be severely cut by just a few decisions, placing speed restrictions on car engines, forbidding anyone less than 21 or over 70 years old to drive. However, there are strong competing economic reasons not to do so. Apparently, although people are fully aware of the risks associated with the purchase and use of automobiles and motorcycles, they continue to do so. This same calculation is made in a whole host of activities that we all participate in every day. We weigh the benefits and the dangers of all sorts of activities and make our decisions based on what we think is worth the risk. Policy makers here in Virginia are trying to find that balance between public health and the economic activity that sustains our lives. Let’s say that their best estimates are that reopening the economy on June 1st will save 250,000 jobs and save 10,000 businesses from bankruptcy...but...they also have estimates that say reopening on June 1st, rather than say, two years from now, would result in 10,000 more avoidable deaths from the virus? What do you do? For the 10,000 people who would die and their families, the correct decision is obvious. For the 250,000 who lose their jobs and the 10,000 businesses that go under, its a different story.

Obviously, I have plucked all of those numbers out of the air to illustrate a point. However, it is precisely these sorts of calculations that officials in government all over this country are grappling with. It is for this reason that we all should be praying for them. They need wisdom and courage to make the right calls. 

I’m glad its them and not me.