I wonder how the current policy of quarantining people and basically shutting down global capitalism over this thing would compare in an economic analysis vs. just running business as normal and letting this thing take its course? Does the cost of more deaths outweigh the cost to industry?
I'd also be interested how effective quarantine is, and how many lives it saves.
I suppose it depends on the eventual death toll, which is an unknown variable at this point. Obviously each death of a working age adult has a major economic cost, as it destroys a persons lifetime productivity and all that was invested in them up to that point in their life.
Running business as normal would never be viable of course, because any country that attempted to do so would be subject to worse disorder and hysteria and the probability of worse economic outcomes and longer recovery. But as a thought experiment, supposing you could control disorder and hysteria, and keep production and consumption running as normal, I wonder how the cost would compare.
Is the perfectly rational economy better off soldiering on through a pandemic?
