Subsidiarity

One size doesn't fit all.
[T]here is one large group of the elderly for whom the issue is simpler: retirees who live on their own in rural, small-town, and small-city America. It is easy for most of them to take care of themselves, and they needn’t be rich to do it. We (for I fall into that category) don’t need to go to a workplace every day. We don’t need to use public transportation. Nothing requires us to eat in restaurants or, for that matter, requiresus to have close interaction with anyone. Does quarantining the entire population give us some additional measure of protection? Perhaps at the margin, though I would like to see some hard data proving that point. But I submit that we elderly who live on our own can make ourselves “safe enough” unilaterally, through the precautions within our control. What proportion of the elderly am I talking about? Calculating that number would take some digging, but wouldn’t it be nice to know what it is if we want to make sensible policy? And that brings me to my main point:
The relationship of population density to the spread of the coronavirus creates sets of policy options that are radically different in high-density and low-density areas. ... The sensible thing for government to do about the pandemic in a small town or small city is different from the sensible thing for government to do in a big, crowded city. ... [T]oo many people in high places, in government and the media, have been acting as if there is a right and moral policy toward the pandemic that applies throughout America. That’s wrong. Disaggregating policy choices to reflect local conditions is essential.

3 comments:

Christopher B said...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/16/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

This map provides some good related information.

Social distancing is an effort to create the appearance of a lower population density.

J Melcher said...

IMHO the big mistake was to treat the virus like we do the "crisis" that arises when Congress can't pass a budget. Experts divide the work force into essential and non-essential, and rope off locations maintained by the non-essential. If an enterprise has both the experts try to weave the rope through the area.

Of course policy-makers (and budgeteers) see themselves as apart from, above, either designation.

It's very much rooted in socialist central planning, where resources -- workers, vaccines, ventilators, transport -- is evaluated, collected, allocated, and distributed by a committee. And if markets or auctions happen to break out, these must be quickly condemned and extinguished. "How DARE a hospital with extra equipment PROFIT by selling or trading it off?!" "Isn't it terrible that New York and New Jersey are bidding against each other to drive up the price of face masks?"


Texan99 said...

Prices are evil! Let's see one more time what happens when we erase their signals.