Why Nobody Will Ever Agree On Whether COVID Lockdowns Were Worth It
Even if it were possible to isolate the number of deaths prevented through a lockdown, it鈥檚 hard to measure costs and benefits associated with coronavirus policies.
As an increasingly vaccinated world emerges from lockdowns, lots of people are talking about whether the fight against the pandemic was too strong or too weak. Some people argue restrictions ; others maintain the attempted cures .
One reason for these conflicting views is that the answer depends on .
Relevant facts include features of the virus like transmission rates and deaths. Government policies were often guided by scientific findings to reduce the spread of the virus and the resulting illnesses and deaths.
Relevant values include health and longevity, but also prosperity, opportunity, equality and freedom. Different people weigh those values differently.
Our on the study of how fair and reasonable discussion helps citizens reach political decisions suggests there will never be widespread agreement on whether lockdowns, the most controversial coronavirus policy, were worthwhile.
Costs Versus Benefits
In a perfect world, policymakers鈥 decisions are . But which science and data matter to some people is different from the science and data that matter to others. Should the government prioritize public health at the ? Should individuals sacrifice ?
In principle, the U.S. could have devoted all of society鈥檚 resources to fighting coronavirus 鈥 but doing so would have meant ignoring all other illnesses and the personal priorities that make life worth living, like hugging Grandma on July 4th.
Cost-benefit analyses offer one way to ensure that various trade-offs are explicitly considered rather than left unstated. These analyses rely on to estimate how much society is implicitly willing to pay to save one life.
Based on those estimates, the number of deaths prevented by coronavirus mitigation policies could be converted into dollars for the 鈥渂enefit鈥 side of the ledger. The associated 鈥渃osts鈥 include direct government expenditures now and into the future, along with lost wages and revenues for individuals and businesses.
With both benefits and costs denominated in dollars, it鈥檚 potentially possible to determine a policy鈥檚 net social effect: .
Lockdowns Are Hard To Evaluate
But even if we could cleanly compare costs to benefits, it鈥檚 impossible to definitively measure the effects of lockdowns. Communities that had longer and more extensive lockdowns were often those likely to be more vulnerable to the spread of disease, or with less access to medical care.
For example, some denser places with more intergenerational households introduced severe lockdowns 鈥 but were also more likely to suffer high levels of virus . This would artificially make it seem like lockdowns didn鈥檛 work, because those places still suffered many deaths 鈥 just fewer than they would have without the lockdowns.
Fortunately, one of the central aims of social science work is finding ways to . Researchers can use statistics to adjust the data in a way that neutralizes the effects of factors that influence both a state鈥檚 fatality rate and its propensity to adopt lockdowns, like its population density, wealth, age distribution and health care capacity.
Still, any honest researcher should acknowledge they can only reduce, not eliminate, .
The Range Of Costs And Benefits
Even if it were possible to isolate the number of deaths prevented through a lockdown, it鈥檚 associated with coronavirus policies.
Confining people to their homes may have reduced their odds of spreading the virus. But staying home may have raised other risks, such as , and the .
Among children, the lack of in-person schooling can and raise rates of .
Data can only bring society some of the answers. The rest we have to decide for ourselves.
Other potential costs can be measured only in the future 鈥 such as smaller expected earnings among people whose learning was slowed down.
On the flip side, mask-wearing and social isolation may have had the unintended benefit of , which a year. And there may have been technological innovations 鈥 like 鈥 sparked by lockdowns. It鈥檚 simply too early to tell.
While the ultimate economic effect of lockdowns may be negative, lockdowns may still be justified if people value a dollar today more than one tomorrow. But policymakers, let alone citizens, simply how much society should value today鈥檚 versus tomorrow鈥檚 dollars. Indeed, this perhaps fuels the biggest disagreements over policies with delayed effects.
The Need For Humility
Because the benefits and costs of policies unfold over time in ways that produce different winners and losers, it鈥檚 simply hard to arrive at a consensus on what benefits to rank first and what costs are worth incurring.
An older person may want the government to prioritize elderly people鈥檚 health, while parents with young children may emphasize reopening schools. Young adults may bemoan lost job opportunities while waiting out lockdowns.
Ultimately, that鈥檚 why there will never be a definitive answer on whether the country鈥檚 lockdowns were 鈥渨orth it.鈥 The costs and benefits can be clarified, but not measured completely. And values come into play: How many lives were saved can never be exactly equated with how many children鈥檚 development suffered.
Data can only bring society some of the answers. The rest we have to decide for ourselves.
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