The COVID-19 lockdowns have become an ever-present part of everyone’s day to day lives for what feels like an eternity. This policy strategy was proposed as an effort to keep hospitalizations due to COVID-19 at a level that did not overwhelm the supply of medical labor and equipment as the world gathered information on the novel virus. However, seven months after COVID-19 was declared a national emergency in the United States, lockdown orders and lockdown-oriented policies implemented by local governments and businesses remain in place. Using data gathered on the virus, a group of medical experts consisting of Dr. Martin Kulldorf, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who hail from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford respectively, take what I thought was an interesting analytical approach to try and prescribe a public policy recommendation for the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Gupta criticizes current lockdown measures saying that most of the thought behind generating these policies stems from the single-variable analysis of case numbers and trying to minimize just this one variable. These doctors focus their analysis on the production of herd immunity and how three different policies affect the outcomes and externalities while herd immunity is being produced. The group defines herd immunity as occurring when there is a level of immunity in a population that is high enough so as to benefit the vulnerable sections of the population. I thought this was an appropriate analysis to make considering the wide reach and effect of many current COVID-19 policies that many have come to accept as based in uncontestable scientific truth and reason because as any decent economist would recommend, one must also look at the cost of opportunities forgone when making spending decisions. Along with looking at the outcomes and externalities that occur on the road to generating herd immunity with different policies, they also propose what the appropriate Coasian solutions would be for minimizing the effects of the externalities generated.
For the first policy, the do-nothing policy, the group looks at the effects of adopting a hands-off policy that lets people continue their normal lives. They propose that this would be as quick a path to herd immunity as the third, the targeted, strategy but would produce a less favorable outcome. This strategy would produce immunity faster while spreading infections evenly across the young and old during this time at the cost of more death of the old and vulnerable. The biggest externality from this strategy is the death of significant rates of the older population, but there is no available Coasian solution to this externality because they are analyzing an inherently hands-off strategy. Next, when analyzing the complete lockdown strategy, they conclude that the outcome from this strategy is a path to herd immunity that takes a longer amount of time to achieve while spreading infections more or less evenly across the young and old. Dr. Gupta points out that while many pushing for this strategy are emphasizing the importance of waiting for a vaccine that they are missing out on the importance of herd immunity in helping protect a population along with the protection provided by a vaccine. Because the lockdown strategy spreads the infections evenly across the population and prolongs the time period that it takes to reach herd immunity, the same amount of old people will still die from the disease. They also identify many negative externalities that have arisen with the implementation of this policy. They point out that under complete lockdown restrictions in the US many health-related negative productions externalities have occurred as a result of this prolonged lockdown. There have been lower vaccination rates, lower cancer screenings, worse outcomes from cardiovascular diseases, and worsening mental health reports over the past several months. Anecdotally, the grandfather of my own friend had his surgery to remove a cancer tumor delayed by months due to regulations placed on hospitals in Virginia that forbid elective surgeries. Another outcome as a result of this strategy is the closure of many businesses and the loss of many jobs due to policies closing sections of the economy and limiting gatherings. The economic cost of complete lockdown is partly an externality and partly a direct result of the lockdown policies and leads to a worse outcome than the first policy and the targeted lockdown strategy. We have been able to witness the Coasian solutions for the lockdown policy over the past couple months, and these solutions have mainly focused on solving the purely economic externalities of the lockdown and not the health-related externalities. The federal government has greatly expanded unemployment benefits and provided relief for businesses through the SBA and the Paycheck Protection Program. Next to nothing has been done by the government to find Coasian solutions for the health-related externalities. They also propose that a problem arises under the complete lockdown strategy due the fact that essential businesses tend to employ a lot of working-class older people. They say that under this strategy most of the burden for generating herd immunity is placed on the older working-class population due to the fact that they are the percentage of the population being most exposed to the virus. Also, anecdotally, having worked at two groceries stores over the summer, I can confirm that older working-class people are put at a more serious risk for getting the virus than professionals and younger students. The third policy they analyze is the strategy that they are recommending to US politicians which is the targeted lockdown strategy. The targeted lockdown strategy proposes that the government put into place measures to protect the older and more vulnerable sections of the population, such as increased testing and safety measures in nursing homes, while allowing the younger part of the population to gain herd immunity. The outcome from this strategy is a fast road to herd immunity while pushing the burden of this duty onto the younger, less vulnerable part of the population. They propose opening schools and businesses but not compelling people to take part in either offering homeschool as an option for those who do not wish to take part in person. A negative externality from this strategy is the fact that older people will be encouraged to stay home from work. The Coasian solution they offer for this is to take advantage of the present welfare systems in place such as Social Security to compensate people and businesses while the old are under lockdown. I think the strategy proposed by the doctors is the least reckless of the three analyzed and cuts down on time it takes to generate herd immunity while protecting the vulnerable and mitigating externalities. (I found after writing this post that just recently the WHO has actually specifically heeded the advice of these doctors who signed this declaration and has asked its member nations, which of course will soon not include the US, to "stop imposing lockdowns.")
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