One "solution" to the exponential spread of the coronavirus is mandated lockdowns, citywide or even countrywide. That's feasible, at least temporarily, for folks who can work at home. Indeed, some folks always work at home. The computer/Internet age makes that increasingly appealing and feasible.
There are, however, many employers/employees in retail/service industries who must be on site to do their job. Should they be furloughed? If they can't work, they can't pay their bills. Can't pay the rent or mortgage or utilities or insurance or wireless carrier or the car or afford to shop for food and medicine, &c.
So it's a question of which groups are going to suffer the most as a result of countermeasures to address the coronavirus. Some will suffer more than others, and some groups will suffer as a result of the policies who were not suffering before the policies were implemented. It creates a new problem to "solve" another problem. So one question is which groups should be made to suffer. What are the necessary tradeoffs? Who should be hurt in the effort to help others?
On a related note, I pointed out similar things here (debate over closing schools).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it's estimated approximately 1/3rd of nurses (to say nothing of physicians and other health care workers) would be unable to work if schools closed nation-wide since approximately that many nurses have underaged children to care for. That would seriously harm our response to the coronavirus.
DeleteHowever, that has to be counterbalanced with the fact that children may be vectors for the coronavirus, allowing it to spread, even if children don't get as sick as adults do from the coronavirus.