snyps said:
Going with the high estimate.. Is one fifth of 1% (mostly elderly and poor health) worth it? Do you know what we’ve lost? How many trillions in your government debt? I’m guessing at least 5 trillion in mine.. an incomprehensible number of that size seems unimportant and ignorable? How about those unemployed for almost a year? This blog post noted that, from February to April:
What about the children who did not receive an education? I know from first hand experience, most families are unable to get their students to successfully adapt to distance learning. They’re functionally a year behind but not held back. Then there’s the vaccines. As long as it’s not forced, do what ever your told. It’s your body. But I see how the supporters of the shutdown act. You want everyone to think and do as you think and do. You want it forced on peoples’ bodies don’t you? for a fifth of 1% (mostly old with poor health) |
This is a false dilemma because we weren't choosing between 0.2% dead or millions of jobs lost, we already got both of those. What we would have to argue about are the relative impacts of different policies and the possible effects on the deaths or economy compared to our current situation. There is no magic switch to make a pandemic not affect the economy even if we had done absolutely nothing (not a far stretch for the US honestly considering how little we did) there are still those who don't really want to go out to Fuddruckers during a pandemic. In which case I guess I would put up South Korea as a shining example that you can actually decrease both of these detrimental effects of the virus if you take it seriously enough.
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