State reopening plans force trade-offs between health and economy

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  The latest jobless claims underscore just how many people are struggling.

  In fact, this video went viral showing hundreds of Kentucky residents waiting for up to eight hours yesterday seeking unemployment benefits. That kind of financial pressure is at the heart of why some states are reopening faster than others.

  But some experts are worried about the spike in COVID cases in a number of those states.

  Paul Solman has the story for our series Making Sense.

• Paul Solman:

  After three months of lockdown and the official onset of recession, the country is opening up. But case numbers are rising, officials alarmed.

• Gov. Andrew Cuomo:

  We have 22 states where the virus is increasing.

• Judge Lina Hidalgo:

  This week, the COVID-19 general hospital population in Harris County was the highest it has ever been.

• Paul Solman:

  Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo warns that Houston may need to turn a stadium into a hospital.

• Judge Lina Hidalgo:

  We may be approaching the precipice of a disaster.

• Paul Solman:

  So, should states lock down again, when so many health care workers still feel helpless and overwhelmed?

• Kelly Griffin:

  The volume is so much less, but the people that are left are so sick. I'm sick of this disease. The people on the floor are dying, and there's nothing that we can do.

• Gov. Andrew Cuomo:

  The question comes back to, how much is a human life worth?

• Paul Solman:

  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

• Gov. Andrew Cuomo:

  A human life is priceless, period.

• Paul Solman:

  There is, however, an argument on the other side: How much is it worth to save the economy?

• Judi Henderson-Townsend:

  This has been the biggest test I have ever had in my business.

• Paul Solman:

  Judi Townsend, whom I first interviewed seven years ago, runs a mannequin business in Oakland, California, selling models to small retailers. She's seen it all.

• Judi Henderson-Townsend:

  I started my business after 9/11 happened, and also I lasted through the whole breakdown we had of the economy in 2008. This is like all of that combined into one.

  They say that you form a diamond under pressure. By the time this is over, I'm going to be the Hope Diamond, because there has been so much pressure in every aspect of my life.

• Paul Solman:

  How many Judi Townsends can afford another lockdown? How many millions of unemployed?

• David Katz:

  Locking everything down probably has done more harm than good..

• Paul Solman:

  Just consider, says preventive medicine specialist Dr. David Katz, the health costs of blanket lockdowns.

• David Katz:

  For segments of the population, shutting down the economy increases the risk of depression and desperation and addiction.

• Paul Solman:

  And, says economist Nick Bloom, you can measure the health costs.

  There's an average of one year shorter life expectancy for a 40-year-old man if he gets laid off. So imagine you applied that to the 40 million jobs that have been lost over the last two months. You're looking at something like 40 million life years we have lost from the recession.

• Ashish Jha:

  I am very sympathetic…

• Paul Solman:

  OK, but there's a rebuttal, as Dr. Ashish Jha told the "NewsHour" last week.

• Ashish Jha:

  We know there's a huge health and psychological cost of the economic shutdown. The point here is, if we hadn't done that, we would have had 60 million more infections, probably a half-a-million more deaths.

• Paul Solman:

  Dr. Katz's response?

• David Katz:

  There's no question, if you lock everyone in place away from one another and the virus, nobody gets sick. It works as long as you keep doing it. The minute you release the clamps, you're in hot water.

• Paul Solman:

  Meanwhile, says Katz, not everyone is equally vulnerable.

• David Katz:

  Overwhelmingly, hospitalizations, ICU use, ventilator use, and death concentrated among people who were both old and with a significant burden of chronic disease.

  In my home state of Connecticut, about 60 percent of the total COVID mortality is just among nursing home residents.

• Paul Solman:

  Economist Daron Acemoglu has studied the data.

• Daron Acemoglu:

  If you look at the mortality rate of over-65-year-olds, it's about 60 times as high as the mortality rates of those between 20 and 50. Those over 75 have 100 times the rates of those in the younger age groups.

• Paul Solman:

  So, instead of blanket lockdowns, Acemoglu proposes targeted ones for seniors, like 75-year-old me.

  So, the idea then is, lock me up.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Daron Acemoglu:

  Protect you. Protect you, we would prefer to say.

• Paul Solman:

  Fair enough. Protect me by quarantining me.

• Daron Acemoglu:

  Right.

• Paul Solman:

  And let people like you and people younger than you go about their business.

• Daron Acemoglu:

  Well, gradually.

• Max Brooks:

  Hi. I'm Max Brooks. I'm 47 years old.

• Paul Solman:

  Like this video Max made about protecting his dad, Mel.

• Max Brooks:

  Hi, dad. He's 93. If I get the coronavirus, I will probably be OK, but, if I give it to him, he could give it to Carl Reiner, who could give it to Dick Van Dyke. And, before I know it, I have wiped out a whole generation of comedic legends.

• Paul Solman:

  Acemoglu's answer would be: keep Mel, Carl and Dick behind glass.

• Mel Brooks:

  Go home.

• Max Brooks:

  I'm going, I'm going.

• Mel Brooks:

  Go.

• Max Brooks:

  Love you.

• Paul Solman:

  I actually posed this idea to a rotary club in Venice Beach, Florida.

  Should we as a country have quarantined people like us, and let the rest of the country go about its business, so that the economy could function?

• Jim Patterson:

  To me, it's a no-brainer. I think the answer is yes.

• Paul Solman:

  Jim Patterson and fellow seniors joined us on Zoom.

• Jim Patterson:

  We would have been better off letting the economy go. I think we're going to be seeing the effects of this at least for a decade.

• Paul Solman:

  Yes, says Dave Lusty, but:

• Dave Lusty:

  How many lives are you willing to trade off to keep the economy going?

• Paul Solman:

  Alanna Kirt agrees.

• Alanna Kirt:

  Look what's happening already in Florida since — in the last week. We have gone way back up. I mean, that — is it a part of the fact that everybody was done social distancing?

• Paul Solman:

  And it's not just seniors who need protection, says Mallory Lasorso.

• Mallory Lasorso:

  I know a 40-year-old teacher who's had trouble breathing for months, and she is healthy.

• Paul Solman:

  Yes, says her 67-year-old father John Kearney, but he had to keep his moving and storage business open.

• John Kearney:

  I have got guys that need to work. I need to work. I couldn't shut down. I would lose my business.

• Garrett Soldano:

  We have family and generational businesses that have failed. Stress, anxiety, drug, alcohol abuse has all went through the roof.

• Paul Solman:

  Garrett Soldano is an open-up-now activist. And he also has a reason besides economics for opposing lockdowns.

• Garrett Soldano:

  I don't feel that any governor should ever take away anybody's constitutional rights.

• Paul Solman:

  That's lockdown-enforcing Governor Gretchen Whitmer, vilified by don't-tread-on-me armed protesters with whom Soldano's group sympathizes.

• Garrett Soldano:

  Her tyrannical hammer being brought down on us was to do what initially? Flatten the curve. But as the weeks went on, that was being accomplished. So why did you continue to put down the hammer on your citizens?

• Paul Solman:

  Because the gradual reopening plan is working, says Governor Whitmer.

• Gov. Gretchen Whitmer:

  This map shows that only Michigan and New York are currently on track to contain COVID-19.

• Paul Solman:

  And thus, in the end, a curious mix of lockdown skepticism, from economic liberty to economic tradeoffs.

• David Katz:

  To shut down countries and stop all economic activity, to lay millions of people off, to totally disrupt life as we knew it, the remedy does not match the threat.

• Paul Solman:

  To which nurse Margaret Cusumano would simply reply:

• Margaret Cusumano:

  We can't be overconfident until we have some measure of being able to say it's in the past, because, if we let our guard down, we're not going to fight this. We're not going to be able to be successful.

• Paul Solman:

  This is Paul Solman, under targeted lockdown, self-imposed.