What will be the economic effects of no restrictions

post by Yoav Ravid · 2020-03-24T06:48:15.629Z · LW · GW · No comments

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Many advocate against restrictions like travel bans, quarantine, lockdowns, etc., because they think the economic damage from those aren't worth the benefit in fighting the pandemic.

But clearly there's would also be economic impact from not putting down restrictions and letting the virus run its course.

What are they?

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answer by kithpendragon · 2020-03-25T22:47:32.725Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Not an economist, but the naive answer is it would be like this anyway. Only people would be dying all over the place and there would be no safety net at all. The damage would be more on a permanent basis due to sporadic but widespread uncontrolled shutdowns. Unemployment would go up like mad and even more people would have no access to health care. Not that it would matter since the hospitals would all be stretched well beyond capacity. The virus would preferentially kill older folks (as it apparently does) without being checked by isolation measures. Their money would pass on to their heirs and the headlines would read "MILLENNIALS KILLED THE BABY BOOMERS".

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