COVID-19 is forcing rethinking in a lot of areas. Work, dating, and entertainment have all been upended by the coronavirus. In government, once-trusted federal agencies like the CDC and FDA have lost clout due to their poor handling of the crisis. Economists and other policy analysts are experiencing a shakeup as well. They too are having to do some hard rethinking, as certain old ways of doing things just don’t make sense in the pandemic era.
The tradeoff between reopening the economy and losing lives to the coronavirus has forced the public to think about an uneasy question: How much is a life worth? It’s something economists have long pondered, though usually safely in the pages of academic journals, tucked away from public view. With the coronavirus, however, these practices are receiving an unusual level of scrutiny. As the public gains unfiltered access into the economist’s workshop, there is a lot they find they don’t like.
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