Minimizing our exposure to the novel coronavirus is something each of us can choose to do, largely independent of those around us. Taking individual responsibility sure beats government lockdowns.
An unfortunate number of people egged on by sensation-seeking media reporting, advocate continuing COVID-19 economic lockdowns whose costs far exceed their benefits and unnecessarily trample individual freedom.
While there is much yet to be learned, what we do know about COVID-19 augurs for informed personal choices.
First, COVID-19 complications increase dramatically with age. Per the Centers for Disease Control, 79 percent of COVID-19 deaths through April 18th occurred in 16 percent of the population over age 65. Less than three percent of deaths occurred in the 59 percent under age 45. These figures include deaths of those with underlying predisposing conditions.
Among those with no predisposing conditions, an April epidemiological study reports that people under age 65 accounted for respectively only 0.3 percent, 0.7 percent, and 1.8 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the Netherlands, Italy, and New York City.
Second, as reported by the Stanford University Department of Medicine, 50 to 85 times as many people in San Jose had been infected with the virus but had no symptoms as had been diagnosed with COVID-19. The University of Southern California and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health estimate that the virus is 28 to 55 times more prevalent in that county than are confirmed cases.
With only a very small chance of serious illness, it follows that many younger people facing personal financial hardships would choose to go back to work. For them, the government cure is worse than the disease.
The keywords in the previous paragraph are “would choose.” To deny them that choice is both unscientific and authoritarian. Yet far too many, even here in Southern Utah, would continue denying individuals that choice indefinitely.
The clearly stated goal of government lockdowns was to “flatten the curve” of the number of COVID-19 cases to avoid overloading hospitals and medical staff. That goal has been accomplished: we are well past the peak load.
But lockdown advocates are moving the goalposts, espousing an unscientific and unsupported notion that continuing government lockdowns will produce a collective good exceeding its collective cost.
Refuting this notion by using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, University of Chicago professor and former Chief Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers Casey Mulligan calculates that lockdown benefits are only 23 percent of lockdown costs.
A commenter on The Independent website charged that Southern Utah lockdown protesters would be guilty of “negligent homicide” should anyone who came in contact with them die of COVID-19. If that were the criterion, lockdowns would never end. Even if they continued for another year, there would be at least a few subsequent COVID-19 deaths, most likely among the elderly.
Commenters both locally and nationally blame protests on “greedy business owners who care more about their bottom line than people’s lives.” But it’s those living paycheck-to-paycheck and small-business owners who are bearing the lockdown’s crushing burden and facing financial disaster.
For those advocating continued lockdowns “until everyone is safe,” let me suggest instead they consider two far more pressing medical catastrophes where government intervention could save lives.
In 2017 nearly 73,000 people died in the U.S because of liver disease and other alcohol-related illnesses. That year alcohol proved to be even more deadly than illicit drugs including opioids. Drunk-driving accidents claim an additional 10,000 lives per year: alcohol puts us all in danger.
The country prohibited alcoholic beverages with the 18th Amendment but repealed Prohibition with the 21st Amendment. Were repeal advocates “selfish, thoughtless” people and “greedy business owners?”
Here’s a second, even bigger problem. Every year the U.S. has over 480,000 tobacco-related deaths including those from secondhand smoke. Should the government ban all tobacco products? It would save far more lives year after year with far less economic havoc than this year’s COVID-19 lockdown.
Alcohol and tobacco use are individual lifestyle choices. Protecting oneself from the coronavirus is also an individual lifestyle choice: wearing a mask, maintaining social distance, choosing carefully where to go or not to go.
Doctors see continued lockdowns as lifesavers. That’s certainly true and each premature death is a tragedy. Nonetheless, policy-makers must look to the well-being of all those they serve: balancing the unknowable number of lives lockdowns would prolong with the more measurable health and financial costs to others.
Two weeks ago my column asked readers to consider the broader range of COVID-19 public health issues at stake:
“At what point does the increase in alcohol and illegal drug use, the increase in domestic violence, the increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide outweigh saving an unknown number of post-lockdown lives?”
Should we maintain COVID-19 lockdowns until late 2021 when every person in the country will have received a yet-to-be-discovered vaccine? Any amount of loosening before then, even with widespread testing, will add a small but unknowable number of premature deaths. Does reopening before late 2021 constitute “negligent homicide?”
Per the Centers for Disease Control, over 37,000 Americans have died on average each year in the past decade from seasonal flu. I’m sure that doctors would agree that locking down our economy for four months starting every December would prevent the vast majority of these deaths. Is failing to lockdown every year for seasonal flu equivalent to “negligent homicide?”
Finally, ask yourself this question. Who is harmed if a local store or service facility reopens? In states like Georgia where certain types of businesses were allowed to reopen on April 21st, some opened while others chose to remain closed, individual choice and responsibility at work.
Employees can choose to stay at home. Businesses can require customers to wear masks and maintain social distancing or not. Customers can patronize or avoid newly reopened businesses as they choose.
The vast majority of customers who become infected will never know it and most of the unfortunate few who do will have only mild symptoms.
Those most vulnerable to COVID-19 – older people and those with underlying conditions – can choose to protect themselves: stay at home or pick and choose when and where to venture out. That’s also true for anyone of any age, vulnerable or not.
We’ve all (mostly) cooperated with the lockdown. But COVID-19 lockdowns will collapse of their own weight and in the process compromise public faith in government if our leaders fail to recognize that most individuals want to take responsibility for their own health and safety.
Alas Howard far cry from months ago. But still off a bit. Stanford study used a crap antibody test from China. But despite your flawed and biased political analysis the gist of what you are trying to prove is correct. The simple answer is all Americans wear masks in public close quarters. But that is not happening. So we will go through a learning curve. 400K Americans died in WW2 over 4 years. Let’s hope in 1 year from now we are only at half this number.
I suggest you watch Dr. John Campbell and Peak Prosperity on YouTube. Science is not the enemy. Ignorance and disinformation is the enemy. And there’s alot of it going around. As the Buddha points out there is harmony in a balanced approach. The black & white mentality perpetuated by politicians and the media is our Achilles heel. Until we have a vaccine the answer is masks for all in public and quality testing. That you can bank on. Yet we were told masks were bad early on???? Add to that some Americans wont comply with a mask policy. Well thank God for companys like Costco. No mask, no shop! That is the near term solution. Discounting the lethalness of the virus is not the right way to go.