Sarah Vine, conservative columnist, happy to sacrifice the old, BAME folks, people with poor immune systems to the economy. Problem with this line of reasoning we see over and over again, the economy is not free-floating from human health and happiness 1/

The quick reopening in the US with stalled economic growth due to Covid-19 cases skyrocketing indicates that lives vs the economy is a false dilemma. The economy will only truly recover once we have the pandemic under control. But aren't we doing stuff for that already? 2/

Well, no. A lot of the money is going into other stuff e.g., saving airlines & the fossil fuel industry ."less than 3 percent of that total is allocated toward Covid testing" [of a recent House Covid-19 package in the US] /3 https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2020/07/10/if-you-want-to-save-the-economy-stop-the-pandemic-355383

As they note: Imagine you had a huge asteroid headed for the Earth. News of that asteroid would surely start financial calamity but "nobody would think that the solution to the impending doom should be exclusively composed of unemployment insurance, small-business loans" etc. 4/

For those who still buy into the lives vs economy false dilemma, there are numerous indicators that show people are restricting their movement and their economic activity, regardless of party affiliation. Economy won't restart as long as folks fear for their lives (Yougov/538) 5/

Another data point: restaurant reopenings. Sure, states have opened up but restaurants are still way down and have stalled since Coronavirus cases soared in the US, even if you take into account takeout (many shifted to this).

Another data point that speaks against Vine's and other's claims that we can sacrifice lives to get the economy going: US states reopened but consumer spending stays down esp among high-income households bc of perceived health risk. Source:
7/ https://tracktherecovery.org/?fbclid=IwAR3psUGjQq8gaJOlW7WVcOglfXkhsXwd2rn_oGyXVP4vjDCaAPqnJxpNpKw

Another indicator that it's not just a matter of sacrificing some vulnerable people to a virus to save the economy...
Bars, nail salons reopened and now in practice many school districts won't be able to open. Ponder the economic ramifications. 8/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/push-reopen-schools-fail/614869/

As @APotochnik put it succinctly: https://twitter.com/APotochnik/status/1289761820467593217
I'd add to this that not only is reopening bars before schools having one's priorities wrong, it's also massively backfiring as we need safe schools for a healthy economy 9/

Just to clarify--I think it is ethically wrong to sacrifice vulnerable folks to save the economy! I am just saying that even if you buy into that logic, as Sarah Vine and basically every repub governor does, the logic does not hold.
/10

The logic doesn't hold also because it's not the case that reopening quickly only harms older and sick people. It harms vast swathes of the population, ethnic minorities who are at increased risk of complications and death of the disease, people who work in and need childcare /11

For example, it boggles the mind that just one airline (Delta) got more in Covid aid than the entire US childcare sector.
Young kids and their parents are, because of high rates of cases and unwillingness of governments to control it, really screwed /12 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/23/child-care-crisis-pandemic-economy-impact-women-380412

Finally one underappreciated thing we need to prioritize if we want to get the virus under control is public trust. I see a lot of wild conspiracy theories floating around about a potential coronavirus vaccine. A lot more effort should go into public outreach so folks take it/end