I have been following COVID in as much detail as I can squeeze into my every ounce of free time and it still pokes me in the eye with surprises every few weeks.
I feel like this is where strong government action makes sense, if you just tell people that we're in the middle of a surge and to be careful, people will naturally do less risky activities (going to bars, movies, restaurants, etc), but these businesses will struggle under these unknowns. If you force them to close and at the same time pass targeted stimulus to keep them in business, that seems to me to be less disruptive and a better path to a faster recovery after this.
Being libertarian-leaning, I'm not generally in favor of lockdowns, mask mandates, etc. But this argument has always struck me as an important one to consider; and, from the few datapoints I've seen (I'm sure there are many more), the economic damage wreaked by lockdowns/mandates hasn't really proven much worse than that experienced by those states/nations that have eschewed such actions in favor of letting people decide what they want to do for themselves.
Right now, what the US seems to be missing is action on reasonable, targeted stimulus/reimbursements for businesses affected by all this. There's been some, of course; but the bulk of it seems to have been politicized (tied with other stuff not really related to the outbreak).
In that light, I think it's better to let people decide for themselves, and the "invisible hand" of the free market decide the resulting impacts, rather than governments intruding negatively (when not properly offsetting the effects).
I feel like this is where strong government action makes sense, if you just tell people that we're in the middle of a surge and to be careful, people will naturally do less risky activities (going to bars, movies, restaurants, etc), but these businesses will struggle under these unknowns. If you force them to close and at the same time pass targeted stimulus to keep them in business, that seems to me to be less disruptive and a better path to a faster recovery after this.
Being libertarian-leaning, I'm not generally in favor of lockdowns, mask mandates, etc. But this argument has always struck me as an important one to consider; and, from the few datapoints I've seen (I'm sure there are many more), the economic damage wreaked by lockdowns/mandates hasn't really proven much worse than that experienced by those states/nations that have eschewed such actions in favor of letting people decide what they want to do for themselves.
Right now, what the US seems to be missing is action on reasonable, targeted stimulus/reimbursements for businesses affected by all this. There's been some, of course; but the bulk of it seems to have been politicized (tied with other stuff not really related to the outbreak).
In that light, I think it's better to let people decide for themselves, and the "invisible hand" of the free market decide the resulting impacts, rather than governments intruding negatively (when not properly offsetting the effects).