The unnecessary fight over Covid-19

We American’s expect to be able to make our own choices about what risks we are willing to take. The limits on our behavior generally concern when it threatens to harm others. When state after state issued stay at home orders and mandated the closing of many businesses (restaurants and theaters, etc.) a year ago they violated this principle. Many people rebelled at this intrusion into their prerogatives, but sadly by often making foolish decisions of their own. Of course, those who contract a contagious disease, such as Covid-19, should be legally quarantined.  Otherwise, businesses and individuals should make their own decisions about how to respond to this pandemic on the basis of the best possible information about its risks and how to mitigate them. A role in which the government failed miserably.

As with economic decisions more generally, countries that give maximum scope to individuals about what to produce and/or buy have been far more prosperous than those in which more decisions are made centrally and imposed from the top (socialism). Among other things the CARES Act suspended debt payments (and associated defaults, bankruptcies, and evictions) for understandable reasons https://wcoats.blog/2020/04/11/econ-202-cares-act-who-pays-for-it/. However, it was part and parcel of centralized mandatory decision making and inferior to individual case by case decisions by lenders and borrowers (debt restructuring) and landlords and tenants (rent forgiveness or holiday or eviction). In normal times when a debtor is unable to service its debt, for purely profit maximizing reasons lenders evaluated case by case whether to allow temporary arrears (debt restructuring) or to invoke the default provisions of the loan (bankruptcy).

Restaurants that felt they could safely open with social distancing and other safety measures that would convince their customers to return should be allowed to do so. They should be free to decide whether requiring face masks when entering and walking about the restaurant would attract more customers than not doing so. Customers who were not comfortable in a restaurant that did not take these safety measure would not patronize them. The relevant government should decide whether to require them on public transportation, etc.  If you come to my house, be sure that you are wearing one.

The culture war we now witness over face masks and other aspects of appropriate public behavior with regard to Covid-19 was so unnecessary. The American government behaved like a parent dealing with children and many Americans responded by behaving like children. They didn’t choose not to wear face masks because they were convinced by medical data that they are not effective (most data shows that they are very effective). Rather they chose not to wear them because the government told them they must. Childish indeed. Almost a year ago I wrote that the government’s most effective role was to provide the best information available (and more was coming available every week) about the nature and risks of Covid-19 and how best to avoid or mitigate those risks. If restaurants felt that they could safely remain open, they would need to convince potential customers that they had taken measures to protect them from exposure to the virus. This was not the approach taken by the government and public trust in the statements of the government in recent years has been, to say the least, low.

I expressed these views almost exactly a year ago (March 31, 2020). I repeat that blog here:

https://wcoats.blog/2020/03/31/beating-covid-19-compulsion-or-persuasion-and-guidance/