You may have noticed a shift in the narrative of social distancing from flattening the curve, to social distancing to save lives. Social distance warriors have taken to social media to tell anyone that raises any skepticism about the efficacy of forced lock-downs that they just want people to die. Or even more common, they utilize the talking point of profits over people. The most concerning thing is their Thanos like certainty that the ends they seek are being achieved and their willingness to achieve those ends by any means.
However, now that the curve has flattened, and we have avoided overwhelming hospitals and the unnecessary deaths that would have followed, evidence that extended lock-downs would save more lives rather than end them is sparse to none.
Consider this article from New York times explaining that the number of people facing acute hunger in the world will double.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/world/africa/coronavirus-hunger-crisis.html
What about here at home, is ending shutdowns really a choice of profits over people? To put it nicely, it is a bit more complicated than that. The longer we keep business shutdown, the less of them will be left to re-open, leading to a more and more impoverished economy. Poverty is linked to almost every ailment in any country. Poverty is linked to crime, drug use, obesity, healthcare access, diet, etc. Increased poverty means increased deaths in all of these categories for years to come. Longer shutdowns mean a flatter curve, but a flatter curve also means that the period that the virus is around is extended. The longer the virus circulates the longer are the most vulnerable like the elderly, remain at risk. Add to this death from suicides, deaths from missed medical appointments, and I am sure other things that I may be missing, and it becomes not that hard to understand that extended lock-downs may be ending more lives than saving.
Social distance warriors need to consider the longer-term consequences of the policies they advocate, I am sure that as their own slogan states, they don’t just want people to die, right?
Personally I would junk the greatest good for the greatest number approach all together. This type of mentality only sets you up to adopting some evil means of achieving your goals, not unlike Thanos. I am not God, and so a cost benefit analysis simply does not apply when the context is people’s lives, people lives are not balanceable against each other. In practice, such arguments lead to endlessly battling statistics.
“Ridding myself of the idea that the lives of the few can be sacrificed to the lives of the many, I found the issue almost settled itself. Taking the individualist approach, I asked myself: what laws should the individual be subject to? What is the principle governing the individual’s relation to the state?
The principle is “individual rights”–your rights and mine.
Rights define the proper limits of state action. They recognize the areas within which the individual is sovereign, entitled to act on his own judgment, free from interference by his fellow man and by the state.” -Harry Binswanger.
