I heard or read somewhere this week someone ask what would
someone think if they had fallen asleep in December 2019 and awoke today to
discover that the United States and the world had willingly shut down almost
its entire economic engine and “encouraged” or demanded that their citizens
stay in their houses except for buying groceries or going to the hospital. No gatherings of 500 or 200 or 50 or 10
people were allowed. Apple had closed
all of its stores outside of China, movie theaters were vacant, Disney World
was closed and air travel had fallen off a cliff. The stock markets had collapsed
by 1/3, Catholic churches around the world were cancelling masses during Lent,
the Olympics, the NBA, NCAA, MLB, Nascar and the PGA all cancelled or postponed
their seasons. All in less than a month,
in some cases just a couple of weeks.
This Rip Van Winkle would likely have expressed disbelief
and posited that other than an alien invasion or world war, only a contagion
could have brought this about.
Winkle: “How many
millions or billions of people had it killed?
25% of the world’s population, 1.5 billion people?”
You: “No, less”.
Winkle: “Surely it
must have been 10% of the world’s population, 700 million people? “
You: “Um… no. Less.”
Winkle: “OK, 2%, 140
million people? Half a percent – 35
million people. Seriously, it has to be
at least that bad to bring the world to such a standstill. No Summer Olympics! No Masters!
No Spring Break!”
You: “Umm, not quite…
the actual number is about 10,000, almost all of whom are in their 70’s and 80’s
with underlying health issues…”
Tilting his head and squinting his eyes, Winkle starts
looking around for a camera as he’s sure he’s on some modern Candid Camera reboot
or is being pranked by those Russian radio shock jocks who conned Prince Harry
into disparaging his own family.
When you finally convince him that he is not being pranked
and that the world has indeed kneecapped its economy for a less than 10,000
deaths… less than ½ the number of people killed worldwide in car accidents every
single week, Winkle thinks the world has gone crazy, recognizing that it has probably
lopped off $5 trillion off of its economy, and perhaps a lot more.
Now of course, the goal of all of that activity – or lack thereof
as the case might be – is to keep that number of deaths down. But the question is, if the world hadn’t
imposed such draconian measures on itself, how bad would it get?
Estimates of course vary widely, from tens or hundreds of
thousands to 50 million, a little below the total number of people who die
worldwide annually from all sources. Here
in the United States the ranges are wide too, from a conservative number akin
to what the flu inflicts annually, 70,000 to two million.
Whatever ends up being the case, one has to wonder, what are
the real world consequences of such measures.
Sure, there will be the trillions of dollars that governments around the
world print in order to try and keep their economies from collapsing. But what about all the businesses that fail, both
big and small. The jobs that will never
return and the corresponding uptick in alcoholism and suicide induced in those
who live on the financial edges of life. Shipments or deliveries of computers or
vitamins or kneebraces that arrive two months late. The weddings that were postponed and never
take place or the relationships that fracture as a result of sudden, ‘round the
clock’ close proximity. The 2-3 months
of education that kids around the world didn’t get. The movies people never see, the dates never gone on, the restaurant meals never served. Not to mention the mental anguish that 7
billion experienced simultaneously.
At 50 million lives saved – again, approximately the number
of people who die around the world annually from all causes – the destruction
of $10 trillion in economic activity and value equates to $200,000 per life
saved, or approximately 20 times the average “value” of every person as measured
by the dividing the world’s $88 trillion GDP by 7.7 billion people. At 1 million lives saved the cost jumps to $5
million per life and at 250,000 lives saved the cost per saved life is $20
million.
No doubt if you or someone in your family is one of the
lives saved, that $20 million price tag is well worth it, as is the $200,000
tag. The question is however, today,
when the worldwide death toll from this virus sits at less than 10,000, is it
prudent for the governments of the world to send the planet’s economy off a
cliff and into freefall to arrest a virus that in even the worst case scenarios
is projected to kill less than 1% of the people who actually contract it?
We all probably have our own opinion on such things, but our
opinions don’t count in “emergencies”. Governments
are sometimes like lemmings, particularly in a world driven by a floundering traditional
media that seeks out or creates chaos or anxiety or sensationalism as it struggles
to remain relevant. Only time will tell whether
March 2020 is more akin to the launch of the Manhattan Project or the passage
of Smoot Hawley. History will, as it
always does, have the last say…
