The Economics of Lockdowns

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Apr 21

An honest economist will tell you that there are no solutions – only trade-offs.  To get this, you give up that.  You may be willing to trade that ten dollars in your pocket for this item in the store, but not for twenty.  Being lighter that extra ten dollars makes the trade-off a bad one to you.  Imagine being forced by law to make that trade.

Lockdowns are about trade-offs also, many and complex.  One obvious trade-off is that in exchange for hardship on you there will be less hardship on the healthcare system.  Maybe.   (It is noteworthy that public sector doctors are forcing this exchange.)

Of course, if you can’t golf, exercise outdoors, gather outdoors, or watch a movie from your car, you can’t catch the virus from golfing, exercising outdoors, gathering outdoors, or watching a movie from your car.  But a trade-off comes in what you do instead of golfing, exercising outdoors, gathering outdoors, or watching a movie in a drive-in.  If that alternative activity is as likely or more likely to cause you to catch the virus, then that trade-off is no good.

To avoid catching the virus from someone else, you have to avoid breathing their air.  Being outdoors makes you less likely to breathe someone else’s air than indoors.  If the choice is between golfing outdoors with three others and watching golf on TV with the same three people in your apartment, then outdoors is the better deal.  If the choice is between watching a movie with your girlfriend at a drive-in or in your apartment, the virus-free air is at the country drive-in.  The same holds true eating at an outdoors restaurant instead of in your apartment.

If society is banned altogether, being confined in the same apartment building for days on end through forced inactivity is bad compared to activity outdoors, because in the apartment building you will eventually be breathing the same air as everyone else.

A Stanford University study of lockdowns released in January concluded that lockdown measures are ineffective for controlling the spread of the virus.  One reason is that a person who is prevented from doing one thing perceived as being hazardous may well end up doing something else that is as - or more - hazardous that simply isn’t perceived as being hazardous, such sitting alone in one’s apartment, breathing the building’s air.

The difference between outdoor activities with others and indoor sedentary, solitary existence boils down to differences in volume of air breathed in a given period, neglecting the health benefits of outdoor activity and society.  Outdoor air tends to be free of the virus, while indoors air is limited in supply, less likely to be virus-free, and breathed a lot more.  Hence, confinement of people indoors is, most of the time, bad as compared to activities outdoors.

Lockdowns aren’t about solutions, they’re a trade-off:  hardship on you in exchange for less hardship on the healthcare system.  Maybe.  Some of the measures are stupid, if not downright counter-productive.  This time of year, prevention of the spread of the virus ought to encourage being outdoors rather than forcing the opposite on people.

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