Argue better if you want me to listen

As I am neither an economist nor — more importantly — a public health expert, this post is not about what we should be doing right now, because I am not anything resembling an authority on that subject.

(Though I will note that the people saying the loudest things right now are also neither economists nor — more importantly — public health experts, so perhaps I should just yell and swear that I am right and I will then be given many dollars to be wrong loudly.)

There is absolutely an argument that the cure can be worse than the disease in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. If there were a scenario where mass isolation would save exactly one life but shut down the entire economy, well, obviously it’s hard to argue in favor of it. Likewise, if the scenario is that we shut down the economy to save five billion lives, even Clay freaking Travis would be like “Okay, yeah, we gotta.”

Like most everything, exactly where the line is to where causing significant economic harm is a preferable option falls is (a) a sliding scale and (b) subject to interpretation. I will admit that I’m probably further along the line toward “save lives” than “protect the economy” and I’m surprised that so many seem to swing so wildly the other way, but I say that knowing that there is an argument that way.

That argument isn’t being made, though.

The people arguing for an end to social isolation and a restart of our general way of life are posing it as an either/or: We stay inside, shut down the economy, and people don’t die of COVID-19, but perhaps poorness and isolation forces them into depression and that kills them. Or we end our social isolation practices en masse, isolate the old and infirm, some of them die, and the economy chugs right along.

And I really, really hope you can see how stupid that is, because it’s really, really stupid.

First of all, if “just lock up the olds” were the solution to this, it’s what we would have done a month ago. It’s not like Jesse Kelly and Bill Mitchell and Donald freaking Trump came up with it and said “Dudes, what if we just don’t let the old people get sick,” and the rest of us had a big revelation that that was possible. The reason that doesn’t work is because it doesn’t work. Also, while old people are at greater risk for hospitalization and death due to COVID-19, it doesn’t mean they are the only ones at risk of it. This isn’t a disease that checks for an AARP card, and if you don’t have one it passes you right over.

If we all decide to end social isolation, reopen businesses, and try to isolate the old people, it might work! As I said at the top, I’m not an expert, and even if I were, experts are sometimes wrong. But we run a heavy risk of getting a lot of people sick, overwhelming our medical facilities, and killing our elders (you know, the ones that the people who are so passionate about doing this say we should honor and respect at all other times). Maybe that’s an acceptable price to pay if it means maintaining an economy that I am told was doing well (even if I see no evidence of that outside of the super-rich dudes getting super-richer).

Except that’s not the tradeoff. Because if we do go out there, do overwhelm our medical facilities, do kill our elders, the economy tanks anyway.

And that’s the thing the Kellys and Mitchells and Trumps and Dan Patricks and Matt Walshes and whoever else aren’t (or don’t appear to be) considering. This isn’t two sides of a coin. It is, like so many things, spots on a sliding scale. No matter what we do now, the economy is at significant risk. And no matter what we do now (as opposed to, I don’t know, January), lives are also at significant risk. Saying “Just go out there and keep the economy going, and old Ed will happily die to make that happen” is absolutely blind to reality. Because if old Ed and his thousands of old friends die, and they overwhelm our medical facilities on their way, then they will have died for nothing, because that economy tanks anyway.

Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t end social isolation practices for the sake of the economy. I don’t think we should, and I think that’s going to be shown to be the right choice, but that’s not the argument I’m making here, because it’s not an argument I’m qualified to make. What I am saying is that the people who are arguing in favor of that are making a really stupid argument.

And that’s what I’m criticizing. They can say the cost of the lives lost is worth it if the economy goes on, but if they don’t acknowledge the (very, very real) possibility that the economy won’t go on even if we listen to them, then they aren’t worth listening to. Because if they don’t acknowledge that, then they aren’t being honest in their argument. And if they aren’t being honest in their argument, then they are worth dismissing.