On the failure to apply a cost/benefit analysis to COVID policy
Here are some excellent observations from Glenn Greenwald:
The quickest and most guaranteed way to save hundreds of thousands of lives with policy changes would be to ban the use of automobiles, or severely restrict their usage to those authorized by the state on the ground of essential need (e.g., ambulances or food-delivery vehicles), or at least lower the nationwide speed limit to 25 mph. Any of those policies would immediately prevent huge numbers of human beings from dying. Each year, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “1.35 million people are killed on roadways around the world,” while “crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54.”…
Given how many deaths and serious injuries would be prevented, why is nobody clamoring for a ban on cars, or at least severe restrictions on who can drive (essential purposes only) or how fast (25 mph)? Is it because most people are just sociopaths who do not care about the huge number of lives lost by the driving policies they support, and are perfectly happy to watch people die or be permanently maimed as long as their convenience is not impeded? Is it because they do not assign value to the lives of other people, and therefore knowingly support policies — allowing anyone above 15 years old to drive, at high speeds — that will kill many children along with adults?
…It is because we employ a rational framework of cost-benefit analysis, whereby, when making public policy choices, we do not examine only one side of the ledger (number of people who will die if cars are permitted) but also consider the immense costs generated by policies that would prevent those deaths (massive limits on our ability to travel, vastly increased times to get from one place to another, restrictions on what we can experience in our lives, enormous financial costs from returning to the pre-automobile days)…
We never opt for a society-altering policy on the ground that “any lives saved make it imperative to embrace” precisely because such a primitive mindset ignores all the countervailing costs…
…[T]he use of cost-benefit analysis as the primary formula we use is uncontroversial — at least it was until the COVID pandemic began. It is now extremely common in Western democracies for large factions of citizens to demand that any measures undertaken to prevent COVID deaths are vital, regardless of the costs imposed by those policies…
Whatever is true about motives, what is unacceptable — sociopathic, really — is the insistence on assigning severe costs to just one side of the ledger (harms from COVID itself) while categorically refusing to recognize let alone value the costs on the other side of the ledger (from severe, enduring anti-COVID disruptions to and restrictions on life).
Greenwald doesn’t get into why this is happening. And I don’t know why either. But I do observe the following: (1) It is not just a US phenomenon, it appears to be widespread in western countries and in some non-Western countries as well (2) It serves the purposes of the left in that it gives them more power and more excuses for that power, as well as accustoming the population to greater levels of government control (3) It serves the purposes of the media for attracting viewers through escalating fear; and (4) It takes advantage of widespread ignorance of math and statistics.
What’s more, in psychological terms, we tend to accept the risks of things to which we’ve become accustomed. COVID is new and although pandemics themselves aren’t new, this one had a very dramatic beginning and frightened people right off the bat (as it were). The unknowns were heightened, and once people became so frightened, COVID became a huge fear for a lot of people and that fear has remained.
Fear tends to be irrational, so cost-benefit analyses don’t often convince in such situations. If cooler heads don’t prevail – and they certainly haven’t with COVID, for the most part – and drum the cost-benefit information into people’s heads with constant repetition, many people will tend to go with their fears. Instead of damping those fears down, government has purposely escalated them.
[NOTE: One of my very first posts about COVID, published March 14, 2020, was called “Gone are the days: assuming the risk.” Right from the start with COVID, I was puzzled by the lack of cost/benefit analysis and historical perspective.]
The environmentalist “Precautionary Principle” has been applied to Covid for the same reason and goal as mitigation of Climate Change .
This quote from Otto Von Bismarck has some relevance to our current situation, “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”
Methinks the reason for the failure of analyzing the cost benefit of COVID is simply the lust for power, as many have said. It’s on a global level, but I’m unfortunately very familiar with very similar reasoning on a much more personal level. Although at this level I simply call it “control” and not “power”, but it’s the same psychosis. I know several friends, acquaintances, even relatives who want to tell me to vaccinate, to mask, to socially distance, etc. simply because they hope that gives them the satisfaction of being in control over me. And if they can alter my behavior in even some little way ( I can’t fly without a gd mask, e.g.) then their desire for control/power has been satisfied.
Yes, it’s hard to discern the “why”. Obvi, there’s psy-ops involved.
They say “If this proposal (total societal shutdown) only saves ONE life, it will be worth it.” Mushy thinkers nod their heads …
Yet, they can’t be enticed to examine stuff like “How many kids will be left alone at home for distance learning? How many will stop learning? How many will commit suicide? How many families will be shattered by job loss?”
The list goes on forever, but “their” willingness to examine the questions is nil.
Thus the growth of conspiracy theories.
How is it possible for them to ban HCQ or Ivermectin? Well known, no horrible side effects and you can go ahead with other treatments too. No downside.
Yet they are doing a full-court censorship, one wonders why.
1) To enrich Big Pharma. Fat good the money will do them if they’re sent to jail or their names are blackened in history for all time. So one feels a limit there.
2) To depopulate the world. Gee. That’s a pretty big conspiracy. Really. Really. Big.
3) Mass psychosis among members of the Dem Party, MSM, gov’t employees and teachers, celebs, etc
It’s a puzzle.
Though you can’t deny they are being enriched by it
Yes, to all of this.
One of my theories that I have been ruminating about for several years involves children. Up until the last 100 years or so couples would have huge families and not just the poor (Queen Victoria had like 7 or 8 children) and yes some of that was lack of birth control but there was also an unspoken assumption that some of those children would die at a very young age. Think of it as scarcity. There is more value in an item that there are less of.
Now, with women often having only one child the thought of losing that one child is beyond terrifying. And this comes at a time when children (in the first world) have never been safer. Hence we see all kinds of irrational fears from middle class women (mostly) about all kinds of threats real and imagined and that has exploded to immense proportions with COVID which is a minute risk for children but is treated like the gravest threat ever.
I agree with all of the above. A year and a half ago, I assumed the panic would be short lived and that, eventually, cooler heads would prevail. Regardless of how much the left, the government and the media (redundant, I know) might want to exploit the panic, at some point, a great many ordinary folk would calm down and start performing cost-benefit analyses…at least implicitly.
Well, I was quite wrong. Depressingly wrong.
Neo and others have discussed much of this before but, surely one of the tragedies of our success as a civilization is that we have been able to banish death to the shadows of old age and certain chronic diseases (which, though serious, are miniscule in their mortality levels compared to the diseases of merely 150 years ago). All other means of dying ‘young’ (say, under 60) are extremely rare in the West. Sure accidents happen, but they’re highly unlikely compared to even a century ago. Even wars, post WWII, have far few casualties and very few civilian casualties (again, in the West) than any time in the past. And so, most of us under 60 go merrily on our way, rarely thinking about mortality (ours or our peers’).
A pandemic with as high a death toll as this one (though miniscule compared to the Spanish Flu) is not just jarring in and of itself. Its shock is compounded by the fact that our society is no longer used to such a blunt, face to face, confrontation with mortality. Most of us are ill equipped for this confrontation. Really, only the Greatest Generation can remember a time when sudden deaths among the relatively young were fairly commonplace. And there’s very few Greatest Generation still around.
The above explains the sheepish acceptance of many Americans (and not just those who are left of center) of even the most absurd and restrictive Covid policies. It also is a very ominous portent of what will happen during the next ‘public health crisis’.
The cost/benefit analysis analysis for covid issues was never done, but I also think it was never done for automobiles. If it had been done for cars, I think we would have spent (a lot of) money on differently designed highways and on various safety technologies.
The probability of a child dying from COVID is roughly the same as someone dying in a traffic accident because that child was driven to the vaccination site.
No one has a right to operate assault-style high mass vehicles (e.g. electric+risk of chemical-fueled perpetual conflagration, tractor trailers). Then there are dual-use items, including: vacuums, bats, picks, shirts, pants, and, of course, the double-edged scalpel that is responsible for millions of excess deaths annually inside and outside of planned parent/hood offices and clinics. #HateLovesAbortion
It was much talked about and mocked on the right but when Cuomo said ‘if it saves one life it will all be worth it’ should have been a bright flashing sign saying WARNING for what was to come.
The probability of a child dying from COVID is roughly the same as someone dying in a traffic accident because that child was driven to the vaccination site.
i think that given a mandate, the conditional probability of the latter becomes higher than the former (i.e. infection and disease progression), and still an elevated risk (efficacy and adversity) associated with the vaccines.
Hah, Cuomo. The man from planned parent/hood speaks, and exercises liberal license to indulge diversity [dogma] (e.g. sexism… genderism – feminine attributes?).
Yeah, Cuomo is an idiot but at that time he was the governor of the state being hit hardest and the media loved him so what he said set a tone for the attitude that was to come.
If you have looked at the fatality rate for covid by age, it is lower than the normal fatality rate. Covid is very dangerous only for the very old.
https://swprs.org/why-covid-19-is-a-strange-pandemic/
and the media loved [Cuomo] so what he said set a tone for the attitude that was to come
And then, in a twist of karmic irony, he was deemed a “burden”, and summarily aborted. Let us also remember Whitmer Closet, the woman from planned parent/hood, and a… another handmade tale, a conveniently scheduled, government-lead operation to distract, project, and ordain.
Greenwald wonders,
“Given how many deaths and serious injuries would be prevented, why is nobody clamoring for a ban on cars, or at least severe restrictions on who can drive…
Nobody as of yet… but give them time, as they’re are not done. Not by a long shot.
” Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S. Lewis
neo ponders, “Greenwald doesn’t get into why this is happening. And I don’t know why either.”
We all know that for the democrats, it’s about gaining greater control but the other side of the coin is why so many people are going along with it. Therein lies the real mystery.
Yes, fear of Covid was a major factor but the longer the fearmongers scream, the less the effect. I suspect it has to do with a more general fear that has arisen over decades in the West. Perhaps starting with the baby boomers. Today, “Safe Spaces” are a clue, along with the demand for bicycle helmets and lately the demand that “offensive speech” be banned…
Those on the left seek protection above all else. From life’s natural vicissitudes but also from any possible threat.
The Antifa and BLM riots had a definite temper tantrum vibe about them.
At base, CRT posits victimhood and uses the claim of victimization to justify the assertion that whites are inherently racist. Without the ‘proof’ of victimization (“lived experience!”) the whole enterprise is exposed as a power grab.
The irony that Biden, their agent in the WH has just raised the threat of terrorism to unprecedented levels only briefly held their attention. But then, denial is easily renewed when reality is rejected. Inevitably, when the reality of terrorism reemerges then the concommitent calls for appeasement will reemerge.
A woke military would not have the stomach for defending a society they hate. And civilians who celebrate such a military haven’t the guts to stand firm in the face of fanatical malevolence. Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are in the forefront of the woke and they will surrender to tyranny because “the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. … A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
Driving the military’s “rough and ready men” out and relpacing them with the “woke” will ultimately prove suicidal. Men who like to dress up as women and women who tell themselves that they are as tough as any man are not going to stand up to and defeat the Taliban, much less China’s confident military.
Given how many deaths and serious injuries would be prevented, why is nobody clamoring for a ban on cars, or at least severe restrictions on who can drive (essential purposes only) or how fast (25 mph)?
Because there are IMMENSE human benefits attached to cars and trucks, whose loss due to such restrictions would become apparent to a large enough group of voters that such said restrictions would be run out of town on a rail.
Much of the ‘stuff’ whose availability we take for granted (oh, say groceries in stores) comes thanks to trucks on our ingeniously constructed road network. And the vast human mobility we also take for granted depends completely on those evil cars, and again on that road network.
Mr. Greenwald has rightly noted those immense benefits, and shown why both sides of the ledger should be accounted for.
And the failure of our governing bodies to tot up the costs of the Covid lockdowns forms a clear illustration of their narrow-minded determination to amass autocratic power for their executives, at the expense of all those millions of lost jobs and other restrictions.
Some people are doing some level of risk/benefit analysis of covid issues (from the Epoch Times).
Sadly, the U.S. government seems to be worse in this regard than either the U.K. or Denmark. Many months ago Denmark recommended that the risk of an AstraZeneca double jab for women aged 40 to 50 was worse than the risk of covid. That vaccine risk was the risk of VITT or vaccine induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia.
The City of Seattle ruling junta (they were ‘elected’ by mail) has reduced the speed limit to 20 MPH for residential streets and 25 for most arterials.
The example is not absurd. On the other hand, Seattle governance is absurd.
Yes, the (100% leftist) city council members really are that shallow, ignorant, and foolish.
David D —
That was in 2016. You’d think that if the traffic/pedestrian fatalities had dropped in subsequent years you’d hear all about it, wouldn’t you? I haven’t heard a damn thing.
Probably because the kind of people who drive poorly and kill people are also the kind of people who don’t obey speed limits.
I have no doubt that in a few more years, they’ll admit that it made no difference, and conclude that they just need to reduce speed limits even further.
@BryanLovely:
“Probably because the kind of people who drive poorly and kill people are also the kind of people who don’t obey speed limits.”
Sorry to say that I don’t foresee you having a great career in Public Policy. I mean you’re talking sense.
*puts hand up in back of class*
Driving standards in the Third World are non-existent.
Perhaps importing Third Worlders (via legal or illegal immigration) is a Bad Idea.
*goes to sit in the corner*
There’s a meme going around.
It’s a still photo of a female reporter holding a microphone out towards two elderly, Amish gentlemen. She asks, “Why isn’t your community suffering the effects of COVID?”
One of the gentlemen replies, “No TVs.”
Bryan Lovely,
It’s for all the bicyclists or so they say. In Seattle in pre COVID before times there was no more outsized lobby than the bicyclists. Are they still around? Don’t hear much about them anymore.
@ Rufus > in re the Amish – “Why isn’t your community suffering the effects of COVID?”
I have that for you in two flavors.
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/09/Screen-Shot-2021-08-31-at-9.14.13-PM.png?w=1086&ssl=1
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/993f2b2af76b0e3f6bc1bcc49f7edc8a1c5cd7be735cab0e36732fc55468de79.jpg
Cost benefit analysis may underlie the Florida law banning mask mandates.
Even if it doesn’t, the ban is the right thing to do, and at least one court agrees to go forward, if not exactly for that reason.
https://notthebee.com/article/victory-appeals-court-says-desantiss-ban-on-school-mask-mandates-can-resume
The parents argued that not allowing students to make their own choice about wearing a mask – rather than being either compelled to wear one or forced not to wear one – was a violation of the rights of the children by endangering those who, presumably, would choose to wear masks.
I’m pretty skeptical on that argument as well.
Not the Bee had several recent posts about insane Covid policies, which don’t even pretend to be logical, much less analyze costs and benefits.
https://notthebee.com/article/rutgers-university-actually-kicked-a-student-out-of-virtual-classes-for-being-unvaxxed
https://notthebee.com/article/rolling-stone-claimed-a-hospital-was-so-overrun-with-ivermectin-overdoses-that-shooting-victims-had-to-wait-and-yeah-even-the-photo-of-the-story-turned-out-to-be-a-lie
https://notthebee.com/article/harrowing-inside-the-emotional-hellscape-where-professors-have-to-teach-rooms-full-of-unmasked-students
https://notthebee.com/article/cdc-quietly-changed-the-definition-of-vaccination-so-as-to-fit-the-political-narrative-and-im-pretty-sure-thats-not-how-science-is-supposed-to-work
https://notthebee.com/article/teacher-accused-taping-masks-to-kids-faces
https://notthebee.com/article/jimmy-kimmel-becomes-latest-to-endorse-medical-dystopia-where-covid-patients-are-allowed-to-die-if-theyre-not-vaccinated
https://notthebee.com/article/now-that-half-the-nation-has-been-jabbed-government-to-study-how-rona-vaccine-affects-menstrual-cycles
BONUS good news stories
https://notthebee.com/article/heres-a-list-of-states-that-are-immediately-suing-biden-for-trying-to-force-companies-to-mandate-the-vaccine
https://notthebee.com/article/bidens-screed-against-the-unvaccinated-was-so-bad-even-cnns-jake-tapper-said-he-took-it-too-far-and-now-people-are-really-mad-at-jake-tapper
https://notthebee.com/article/espn-reporter-announces-she-wont-be-working-football-games-this-year-after-choosing-not-to-get-the–while-trying-to-conceive
BUT while we were watching the Taliban and the Vaxxinators cage match, this is happening behind our backs in front of our faces:
https://notthebee.com/article/biden-administration-proposes-comprehensive-financial-account-reporting-regime
Finding it hard to label this “satire” any more —
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-unveils-six-point-plan-to-end-covid-america-as-we-know-it
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-unveils-your-body-my-choice-vaccination-program
https://babylonbee.com/news/joe-biden-announces-civil-war
https://babylonbee.com/news/cdc-says-a-new-covid-variant-may-be-needed-to-effectively-bury-afghanistan-news
None of this can happen without the more-than-willing cooperation of millions of citizens.
Why?
Have tens of millions of people suddenly become irrational? Or has the irrationality formed to fit the structure of society in such a way that one doesn’t bump into the other? That might show itself in voting patterns.
But, now, with a brand new factor, irrationality can be allowed to run free. And it includes what must have a better term for it than “virtue signaling to oneself”.
Without these tens of millions firing up their yummy irrationality, we’d be looking at a new flu, if anybody bothered.
Never mind automobiles; if the government really wanted to save lives, end crippling disease, and improve the health of the population, it would ban sugar and corn syrup.
Neo,
If you recall at the very beginning of Trump’s term. One of the things he ushered in was that cost/benefit analysis for the EPA. It was one of the first things that demonstrated he knew what he was doing. Sadly far to many things government does, lack this simple element.
I happen to have lived in a city that since the mid 70’s has been fighting the EPA on just this subject. Over 40 years. I will summarize the story as best I can only to demonstrate its absurdity.
Complaints were made that the cities storm water drains commingled with regular sewer drainage in a medium sized tributary. They forced the city to create a remedy to be approved by them. A total of 4 were proposed. The EPA took by far the most expensive one. Which at the time put the initial cost at nearly 250 million dollars for a 24 square mile city.
So the city went to court to fight for one of the less expensive and time consuming proposals. (If memory serves it was roughly 85% as effective but at 25% of the cost). After nearly a decade in court a judge ruled the city would have to use the most expensive option. As cost/benefit was not a requirement in the EPA legislation. Only the most effective choice could be chosen.
So the city was forced to place a CONCURRENT sewer system, running directly next to the current one with a series of pumps and cisterns build in to handle run off. The project finally got off the ground after litigation (appox 1989). And continues to this day. Just last year digging up all the streets south of my home and continuing north this year. 33 years on. This monstrosity continues.
And while the tributary is clearly cleaner. Flooding has now become routine, (as the pumps must be turned on manually) homeowners tax bill every year is 18% higher to pay for the bonds. And the cost overruns are slowly closing in to 1 billion dollar territory.
This is what happens when government dictates solutions without looking at alternative choices.
mythx
Perhaps the government looked at the alternatives, picked the most expensive, most annoying one, and went home to giggle wildly.
@ Aubrey > @ mythx > “Perhaps the government looked at the alternatives, picked the most expensive, most annoying one, and went home to giggle wildly.”
That’s not even the least likely possibility any more.
However, my question would be “cui bono?” – who gets the contracts for all that work and the cost overruns, and who do they “donate” to?
It doesn’t matter. The EPA is run and staffed by Gaia-worshipping hippies (a friend used to do IT for them at the Seattle office). They just don’t care about costs.
The EPA has been chasing diminishing returns for at least thirty years, driving environmental pollutants far below actual toxic levels, and they will never stop because they are on a holy mission. And, unsatisfied by their failure to destroy industrial civilization, they go looking for ever more things to class as “pollutants”, like CO2.
@ Bryan > “they go looking for ever more things to class as “pollutants”, like CO2.”
And that deadly dihydrogen monoxide.
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html