Do something stupid

Writing about the pandemic is a fool's errand. By the time this shows up in print, the numbers will have gotten worse, probably much worse, given the trajectory of such things.

Not being a microbiologist or epidemiologist makes it hard to comment with any credibility on what we should do during a public health crisis of this sort, but those of us with at least a passing knowledge of history and politics should be able to identify some things that we shouldn't, including allowing hysteria and fear to drive our decision-making.

At the least, we should be highly skeptical or arguments like that which New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo trotted out when ordering a lockdown in his state -- that such measures are justified "if everything we do saves just one life."

Whatever the superficial appeal of such a claim, the logic underneath it is patently absurd and suggests a way of thinking about the problem that is worse than the problem itself.

Public policy is never formulated at an exorbitant cost in order to save a single life because it would violate the utilitarian, cost-benefit relationship upon which sound public policy depends.

To the contrary, many of the laws and regulations under which we live inherently accept a likelihood of a certain loss of life in return for efficiency and convenience, thereby acknowledging the need for tradeoffs in which values other than preservation of life come into play.

If saving lives were all that mattered, speed limits would be set at 25 mph instead of 70 (for that matter, 10 mph or lower) and precious civil liberties, including due process and presumptions of innocence, would be abandoned to reduce crime rates.

Indeed, lives are routinely risked in all kinds of activities that are engaged in largely for pleasure and produce no societal benefit whatsoever, including the sale and consumption of alcohol and tobacco products, skydiving, Mount Everest expeditions, and high school football. If saving lives were all that mattered, we would probably ban red meat from grocery stores and shut down fast-food joints.

If saving a single life, or even a large number of lives, had been the primary goal, more than 700,000 could have been saved by allowing the South to secede from the union, "Operation Overlord" would have been canceled rather than serve as the first step toward liberating Hitler's Fortress Europa, and no national effort to land a man on the moon would have been undertaken (given the inherent dangers to the astronauts).

As Heather Mac Donald notes, apropos of our current crisis, an "estimated 40,000 Americans have died from the flu this flu season. Social distancing policies would have reduced that toll as well, but until now we have preferred freedom of association and movement."

Rejecting the "save a life at whatever cost" rationale is thus crucial to maintaining the kind of perspective necessary to make sound decisions in times of crises, and central to that perspective should always be a cool consideration of costs and benefits associated with any steps taken, and an acknowledgment that there have to be limits to the nature and duration of any measures taken to save additional increments of lives.

Saving as many lives as possible in the here and now obviously matters, but lots of lives, probably more than the virus could ever take, will be lost if our efforts to combat it plunge the global economy into a severe, multi-year depression.

Without including such considerations in our national response to the pandemic, we run the risk of public officials succumbing to the "Don't just stand there, do something stupid" tendency, in which costly but ineffective actions or those that actually end up making matters worse are taken purely for the sake of being seen acting.

There are obviously many times when government must act quickly in the face of threats, often, as now, without full information and with worst-case scenarios in mind, but a perusal of the historical record also indicates that governmental action taken under conditions of panic usually does more harm than good.

If we were to cede out of fear vast new powers to our leaders to combat the pandemic, we might lose something much more valuable in the long run than the number of lives lost in even the most extreme pandemic scenarios times 10--our democratic system and free society.

It cannot be a coincidence that, as the pandemic spreads, the book that sits atop The New York Times' best-seller list is Erik Larson's "The Splendid and the Vile," a marvelous account of Winston Churchill and the British during their "darkest hour," when they stood alone against the German Blitz, awaiting the expected invasion of their island kingdom. It is a story of inspired leadership and great perseverance in a besieged people.

There is obviously a difference between the threat posed by the Luftwaffe and that posed by invisible viruses, but the Blitz killed nearly 30,000 Londoners between Sept. 7, 1940, and May 11, 1941, in a city of roughly nine million.

As of March 24, the coronavirus had killed 785 Americans in a nation of 320 million.

Perspective usually helps, panic never does.

Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial on 03/30/2020

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