Youth Pay a High Price for Covid Protection

Leaders’ greatest failure was not focusing on the elderly, who had lower costs and far greater benefits

By Charles L. Hooper and David R. Henderson. Excerpts:

"For our purposes we are combining voluntary and coercive (e.g., government lockdown) nonpharmaceutical precautions—mask-wearing, hand-washing, quarantining, distancing and isolation of infected people—under the umbrella of protection. The benefits of protection include reducing the potential for death, pain, suffering and healthcare costs, along with reducing the chance of infecting others. But the main benefit of protection is that fewer people die from Covid-19."

"The global average infection fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is roughly 0.23%. The average U.S. fatality rate is higher, probably 0.3% or 0.4%"

"Herd immunity for SARS-CoV-2 would be reached after perhaps 70% of the population has been infected."

"While perfect protection would eliminate the risk of infection, few people can practice it. Based on data analyzed by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, we assume that actual protection reduced the risk of infection by roughly half. Therefore, imperfect protection reduced the risk of infection for the average American from 70% to 35%.

We find that the benefits of protection are disproportionately higher for older people. Consider two extremes: the 18-year-old and the 85-year-old. If the 18-year-old dies, he loses 61.2 years of expected life. That’s a lot. But the probability of the 18-year-old dying, if infected, is tiny, about 0.004%. So the expected years of life lost are only 0.004% times 35% times 61.2 years, which is 0.0009 year. That’s only 7.5 hours."

"Now consider the 85-year-old. If he dies, he will lose 6.4 years of expected life. The probability of dying, if infected, is much higher for him, about 8%. So the expected years of life lost are 8% times 35% times 6.4 years, which is 0.179 year—65 days. The benefits of protection, measured in life expectancy, are 210 times as high for the older person.

The costs of protection include reduced schooling, reduced economic activity, increased substance abuse, more suicides, more loneliness, reduced contact with loved ones, delayed cancer diagnoses, delayed childhood vaccinations, increased anxiety, lower wage growth, travel restrictions, reduced entertainment choices, and fewer opportunities for socializing and building friendships.

In a 2020 study for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann estimate the loss to lifetime income for individual students to be 6% (assuming schools were closed or reduced for the equivalent of 67% of a year). Given U.S. median lifetime earnings of $1.7 million, that 6% translates into $102,000 per student."

"Assuming that reduced lifetime earnings are the only costs and reduced life-expectancy losses are the only benefits, the 18-year-old faces a cost of protection of approximately $102,000 and a benefit of 31% of a day. Would you pay $102,000 to live an extra 7.5 hours?"