Covid-19: sacrificing lives does not mean saving the economy

There is no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has incurred widespread economic costs. There is understandable concern that stronger measures against the virus, from social distancing to full lockdowns, worsen its impact on economies.

As a result, there has been a tendency to consider the problem as a trade-off between health and economic costs.

This view, for example, has largely defined the approach of the US federal government. “I think we’ve learned that if you shut down the economy, you’re going to create more damage,” said US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in June, as the Trump administration resisted calls to decisively combat the nation’s second COVID wave.

But the notion of a trade-off is not supported by data from countries…