Only Social Darwinians Worry About the Harm Caused by COVID-19 Lockdowns, Andrew Cuomo Says. The point of shutting down the "nonessential" economy, New York's governor explains, is to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."

Reason ^ | March 24, 2020 | Jacob Sullum

[karpov]

Anyone who was looking for some assurance that politicians are giving appropriate weight to the potentially devastating economic impact of aggressive COVID-19 control measures will not find it in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's comments at his press conference today. "We're not going to put a dollar figure on human life," said Cuomo (D), who last Friday announced that "we're all in quarantine now" while ordering all "nonessential" businesses to close. The goal, he explained, is to "save lives, period, whatever it costs."

In a world of finite resources, where government agencies routinely and appropriately weigh the cost of potentially lifesaving regulations, that attitude is utterly irrational. Worse, Cuomo portrayed concerns about the millions of Americans who have been deprived of their livelihoods by lockdowns like his as cruel indifference to the fate of Americans who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their age or pre-existing medical conditions.

"My mother is not expendable, and your mother is not expendable, and our brothers and sisters are not expendable," Cuomo said when asked about "conservatives" who have noted the heavy burdens imposed by sweeping restrictions on movement, business operations, and work. "And we're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable."

Here is what lockdown skeptics are really saying, according to Cuomo: "We'll just sacrifice old people; they're old people anyway. And the old get left behind….We're going to move on, and if you can't keep up, well, you just fall by the wayside of life." He described their philosophy as "some modern, Darwinian theory of natural selection."

That interpretation is not just uncharitable; it is cruel in its own way, treating the human costs of shutting down the "nonessential" economy, which fall disproportionately on people of modest means, as a minor consideration

[FormerFRLurker]

But the FedGov can and it will bail out state and local governments if it means avoiding another Great Depression.

[SunkenCiv]

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