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Horowitz: More than money: GDP loss from lockdowns will cost millions of life years
Daniel Horowitz August 6, 2020In 1957, America was faced with a flu-like virus that had a similar fatality rate to COVID-19 and was even more disruptive in some ways. Yet, Americans understood that these viruses cannot be stopped, and they slogged along without shutting down their economy and infringing upon liberties. Which, as I mentioned before, is why almost nobody living at the time remembers it. Contrast that to 2020 when we have compounded inevitable viral deaths with avoidable man-made deaths from lockdown – no matter how much these policies fail to deliver.
On July 30, the Bureau of Economic Analysis . . . the economy had contracted by an unfathomable 32.9%. This number shocks the conciseness and blows out the worst quarter of the Great Depression, yet the announcement barely stayed in the news cycle beyond a few hours. But behind that loss of money is a loss of life that few are trying to quantify and balance against the policies that have induced this misery.
. . . the number of lives lost from the devastation of the lockdown itself – something our government failed to simulate when it embarked on this novel policy. They used a formula based on government data assuming one life lost from suicide, alcohol or drug abuse, or stress-induced illnesses per $17 million of economy productivity lost. Now that we have hard data of GDP losses, I wanted to revisit those numbers.
According to BEA, the current‑dollar GDP decreased by $2.15 trillion in the second quarter and by $186.3 billion in the first quarter, primarily in the final days of March. The total loss of $2.3 trillion in GDP is roughly in line . . .
Using their formula of one life lost per $17 million in decreased economic productivity, that would equal roughly 137,000 lives lost just from the drop in economic activity through June. Those numbers have likely grown by tens of thousands over the past five weeks, and based on the trajectory of our existing problems, will continue for months on end. In other words, the death toll just from the economic stress alone (not to mention the delayed health care) will be more than the eventual excess deaths from COVID-19.
But it’s worse than that. Most people who die from the virus are at or above the age of life expectancy. Even Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College of London, the primary advocate for lockdown policies, predicted that two-thirds of the fatalities would be among people who would have died within the year. Contrast that to a younger generation of adults and even children who are now committing suicide and overdosing on drugs due to the disproportionate anxiety and social isolation being imposed upon their lives thanks to the national masochism and panic. This will result in millions of years of live lost. . . .
https://www.conservativereview.com/...loss-lockdowns-will-cost-millions-life-years/
