Dr. Sunetra Gupta and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, two of the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, write:
The Canadian COVID-19 lockdown strategy is the worst assault on the working class in many decades. Low-risk college students and young professionals are protected; such as lawyers, government employees, journalists, and scientists who can work from home; while older high-risk working-class people must work, risking their lives generating the population immunity that will eventually help protect everyone. This is backwards, leading to many unnecessary deaths from both COVID-19 and other diseases.
This is from their recent article titled “Canada’s COVID-19 Strategy is an Assault on the Working Class,” AIER, December 4, 2020.
When I read the first sentence in the paragraph above, I thought the authors would go in the direction I’ve been speaking and writing about since April. I thought they would make the point that while many professionals can work from home and, therefore, don’t suffer much of an income loss, many working class people have been put out of work by government lockdowns. Think bars, restaurants, hair salons, nail salons, etc.
But that’s not the direction they go in. They write:
older high-risk working-class people must work, risking their lives generating the population immunity that will eventually help protect everyone.
I run into these people a fair amount at Lucky, Safeway, Trader Joe’s etc. To the extent they express themselves on the issue, a substantial majority of the ones I’ve talked to are thrilled that they are allowed to work. The working class people who I’ve noticed are most upset are those whom the government has prohibited from working.
Forcibly preventing people from working = assault on the working class.
Allowing people to work and take risks does not = assault on the working class.
READER COMMENTS
Michael
Dec 9 2020 at 9:55pm
The claim by the GB authors strikes me as fundamentally selfish. “You at-risk folks must work (risking your lives) for the eventual benefit of others.”
I agree that preventing people from working is, all things equal, bad, but letting a deadly virus run wild through the population is also bad (and will, among other things, prevent many people from working).”
I think the response to Covid-19 (especially by the government but also from individuals and other organizations) has managed to achieve bad outcomes across all dimensions: we still are dealing with the virus itself, the costly voluntary responses to the virus, and the costly involuntary (forced) responses.
Eric J
Dec 9 2020 at 10:01pm
Agree with you there David. At first glance, it looks like they had an agenda and were righting to it. As far as I can tell, in Canada I’ve seen no headlines about older people being forced to work. All the headlines scream about lower class ethnic groups forced to work. My initial thought would have been older people were likely to be in better paying jobs that would allow remote work. Aside from all that, most significantly, the Canadian government said if you can’t work because of COVID we’ll give you $2000/month to ride it out (now $1800/month). If the government is giving you healthy unemployment benefits, how would you be forced to work?
Simon Whyatt
Dec 10 2020 at 2:40am
A few thoughts on this from a (hopefully) neutral standpoint;
1. Beware your anecdotal perception that working class people are happy to be working. This could be your confirmation bias. Actual study data out there shows much more mixed responses.
2. According to the paper lawyers and scientists are young, working class people are old?
Last time I checked there were also older professionals and young working class people.
This is of course when things get complicated.
I believe people should be allowed to work if they wish and compensated accordingly. Higher risk should in theory afford higher pay. But the the same job has a different level of risk for different people.
Alan Goldhammer
Dec 10 2020 at 9:36am
Some large supermarket chains gave pay increases last Spring to workers during the early stage of the pandemic. I don’t think they are any longer and there is really no way for those of us who acknowledge what they are doing to tip them.
The points you raise are excellent. There are large number of jobs that can be done remotely and many people have not missed a beat. Most large offices in the DC area are still closed or minimally staffed. The financial advisor that I use for money management still has several thousand employees working from home. this is one of the reasons for the large drop in commercial real estate since the pandemic began.
While many people want to work, pandemic related issues such as viral spread in bars and restaurants means that many of us with disposable income will not dine inside (you can forget outside dining when the daytime temperature is 40 degrees). We don’t travel or go to stores other than to buy groceries. This is the demand side of things that economists such as David seem to overlook but are probably having the most profound effect on the economy right now (I’ve seen the closure of six restaurants that we used to frequent in the last two months and expect more to come).
Thomas Hutcheson
Dec 10 2020 at 6:59am
I reject this whole dichotomous/class war approach. Why can’t we ask what kind of restrictions and investments in other infection-reducing measures in what circumstances yield the best outcomes? Of course, that’s not an easy thing to answer, but the mindset seems to me to be the right one?
Larry
Dec 13 2020 at 11:04am
I’ve been following and find myself in agreement with David Henderson’s approach to the lockdowns. Regarding the GB Declaration statement quoted above, however, I wonder if it also conveys another truth, but in a different way than it should have — particularly if some of the words were altered to be more “descriptive” if we changed the words “must work” to something like the following:
“…while older high-risk working-class people are working, risking their lives generating the population immunity that will eventually help protect everyone. This is backwards, leading to many unnecessary deaths from both COVID-19 and other diseases…”
What I mean here is that the authors of the GB Declaration my inadvertently have projected their outrage at the irony of older workers unintentionally bearing the brunt of the “herd immunity” burden. It can be objected that I’m proposing a contrary-to-fact scenario by suggesting the changed wording, but if we think of the natural outrage of the GB folks at this situation created by the political class as the basis for their use of the word “must,” maybe we can agree that both David Henderson and the GB Declaration on this matter hold water.
Bert Lundy
Dec 17 2020 at 12:27am
Yes, which of the political leaders — Newsome, Cuomo, Blasio, Michigan’s
governer (name eludes me), etc. …
the political leaders of Monterey County — lost a penny of their income.
All comes down to freedom and responsibility. Am I the owner of my own
life and body (recalling Walter Williams) or is the government?
If I own my life, I can make my own decisions. If they own me, I am a slave.
Which is where we are going. Road to Serfdom, Hayek.
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