Lately, I have been thinking a fair bit about decision-making. Covid-19 has confronted us with a range of significant choices: about whether, and to what degree, to embrace lockdowns, about closing and reopening elementary schools, about who should get the vaccine first, and so on. As we have engaged with these choices, there have been people on both sides making good-faith cases for their point of view. There are some who passionately think we should reopen elementary schools, and there are some who passionately wish to keep them remote-only. There are some who feel lockdowns should remain in place until vaccines are widely distributed, there are others who feel a phased reopening is both feasible and necessary for countering the economic consequences of the pandemic. There are some who think vaccine priority should be guided exclusively by who is likeliest to die from the virus and there are some who favor an equity-based approach which accounts for the historic disadvantage that creates health gaps.
These choices have in common their deep ramifications for health, and the quality of being difficult to get completely right. Indeed, I have yet to see anyone suggest a resolution to any of the issues I have just mentioned that both elides costly health and economic tradeoffs and manages to satisfy everyone. (If you, the reader, can name an instance where this needle has been successfully threaded, please do let me know in the comments section below. I am interested to hear about it.)
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