The Lockdown Strategy Called to Account

Writing in The Australian, Janet Albrechtsen has pointed out that the statistical value of life used in regulatory assessment is $4.9 million for someone expected to live another 40 years — $213,000 per year  Such measures are income-dependent; in the US the value was put at $9 million and a 2012 study for Turkey put it at five and a half years per capita income or $59,000. Such measurements offend self-righteous claims that “every life is priceless” but such notions, if followed, would impose costs that would bring about other and additional loss of lives.

While Albrechtsen’s column is written in the context of coronavirus expenditure, she does not extend it to examining the worthiness of the measures put in place to address the pandemic.

Possible person-lives saved by lockdowns and spending

We have had 97 coronavirus deaths as of the time of writing and are witnessing a welcome tailing-off of new cases, now running at around 24 per day, with a recovery rate of 86 per…