Economics do matter, even in a pandemic.

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Nov 20

RE: Some pandemic policies don’t make sense.  Spectator editorial of today.  The Marxists again complain that the elected official, i.e. Premier Doug Ford isn’t simply surrendering his discretion to the panel of medical experts.  In brief, the paper wants to forecast another lockdown.

With such an inviting title, I hoped I’d find myself in agreement with the Spectator for once.  Alas!  It was not to be.

The problem with “rule by experts,” which is what the editorial endorses, is that you’ve got to have the right set of experts.  In Premier Ford’s case, his team of experts is lacking in economists and even mathematicians.  All he seems to have are doctors, and to a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  When the editorial remarks that Ford isn’t making public health paramount, even ahead of economic concerns, this is where an economist would come it.

An economist would ask, “at what cost?” and say, “there are only trade-offs.”  He would observe that after eight months of pandemic, Canada experienced 173,000 deaths from all causes, while COVID accounts for only 11,000 deaths, so what’s with the fixation on, the ‘paramountcy’ of, this one cause of death?  The economist would observe that the health effects of the restrictions are now causing more health issues than the pandemic itself.

The problem with making COVID paramount is that the costs are too high.  The trade-off in prospect is that we learn to live with it, having to endure another cause of death at least until the vaccines are distributed.  But we end our social isolation, our children get educated, financial derangement can end.

Premier Ford is the elected generalist who gets to make the final call.  Saying he has to surrender his decision to a panel of experts is plain wrong.

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