1/ We no doubt accept this argument for an intensive care specialist forced to choose to apply a *single* available ventilator to *one* and not the *other*. But it is a dangerous misstep to create the circumstances whereby that outcome gets engineered to happen.

2/ What rational economist would not increase the supply of ventilators and if that can't be done without delay, also seek to flatten the curve to avoid their need? At a national level we can change the constraints faced by intensive care specialists and change national outcomes.

3/ To implicitly advocate social euthanasia based on circumstances of medical triage, when medical professionals make highly constrained decisions, does not serve Australia’s interests well, nor accurately reflect feasible economic and health outcomes.

4/ The same article reports that Professor Frijters contends "saving tens of thousands of lives [was] a drop in the ocean compared to the long-lasting disaster caused by economic collapse". https://theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/coronavirus-lockdown-hysteria-is-ruining-10-million-lives/news-story/fd5307f58302cf1ab928decb07b2619c

5/ How does saving tens of thousands of lives ever become a drop in the ocean in any social calculus?

6/ The language itself is emotive, contemptuous of life and thus itself contemptible. But even so, simplistic static trade-offs between the statistical value of life and national income falsely represent the complexity of the social, economic and medical problems we confront.

7/ Do we really think that a public policy response of herd immunity doesn't itself present genuine economic risks? Surely not. But these static trade-offs tell us nothing about the costs and benefits of different public health and economic policy recommendations.

8/ All this leads me to ask @QandA: Are these the expert voices we wish to hear frame our bigger picture in this discussion?