Has any government presented a cost benefit analysis of all the available options to address this situation?
Like most things in life this isn't black and white, so where is the analysis of the pros and cons, worst case projections, etc of not doing anything / going into lockdown / other alternatives.
I for one have not seen it.
Shouldn't such an analysis be the basis of any decisions we make? It follows therefore that it needs to be first of all DONE, then publicly presented and argued from all angles before a decision is made.
But, no. A decision has been made and presented to us. We can rest assured, they say, the science CLEARLY shows that this is the right decision. Then - at least in the UK - later they admitted that the economic impact and the following consequences have not yet been looked into.
The arguments should not be about lockdown or not. It is fair and everyone duty to scrutinise government decisions, not because they should have done the exact opposite, but simply because they haven't presented a robust case for what they're doing.
Let's not forget, it is their ONLY job to represent us - a job all of us are paying for -, and do things that are in our best interest, yet they fail to properly justify decisions.
Anyone who without question agrees to locking down the economy might want to consider that bailouts, stimulus packages, unemployment benefits, and anything else the government does is paid for with our money.
Add to this the borderline misleading way covid deaths are classified and a dozen other similar issues and you have yourself a very interesting situation which should be raising questions in everyone.
"Shouldn't such an analysis be the basis of any decisions we make?"
No. We can decided to make decisions based purely on the morality of the decision. Given a death rate somewhere between 1% and 3% the question becomes whether we will accept that many deaths, without taking action. There is no need for a cost/benefit analysis, as we can decide the issue entirely on a moral basis.
You can't know the morality of the action without modelling all the consequences. Morality is a complex thing, and certainly cannot be determined by just a single number (number of deaths from the virus avoided).
Has any government presented a cost benefit analysis of all the available options to address this situation?
Like most things in life this isn't black and white, so where is the analysis of the pros and cons, worst case projections, etc of not doing anything / going into lockdown / other alternatives.
I for one have not seen it.
Shouldn't such an analysis be the basis of any decisions we make? It follows therefore that it needs to be first of all DONE, then publicly presented and argued from all angles before a decision is made.
But, no. A decision has been made and presented to us. We can rest assured, they say, the science CLEARLY shows that this is the right decision. Then - at least in the UK - later they admitted that the economic impact and the following consequences have not yet been looked into.
The arguments should not be about lockdown or not. It is fair and everyone duty to scrutinise government decisions, not because they should have done the exact opposite, but simply because they haven't presented a robust case for what they're doing.
Let's not forget, it is their ONLY job to represent us - a job all of us are paying for -, and do things that are in our best interest, yet they fail to properly justify decisions.
Anyone who without question agrees to locking down the economy might want to consider that bailouts, stimulus packages, unemployment benefits, and anything else the government does is paid for with our money.
Add to this the borderline misleading way covid deaths are classified and a dozen other similar issues and you have yourself a very interesting situation which should be raising questions in everyone.