COVID-19: Are government resources better spent on public health or stimulating the economy?

Poorer states with few cases will disproportionately suffer

Question: COVID-19: Are government resources better spent on public health or stimulating the economy?
Position‹2 of 3›: Government resources are better spent on economic growth
Argument‹2 of 2: Poorer states with few cases will disproportionately suffer

Blanket lockdown will unfairly crash economies where there are no coronavirus cases. When it comes to the smaller, less wealthy states, the longer they stay shut down, the more they will feel the disproportionate effects on their economies.

The argument

Government resources are better spent stimulating the economy of states where the risk of destroying the economy is more severe than the risk spreading of the virus. There are several smaller, rural states that have seen relatively fewer coronavirus cases in comparison to major American cities and densely populated states. Among the states/regions with the highest transmission and fatality rates are New York, California, and the District of Columbia. These are also states that are in the top 10 of the best economies in the United States. States like Idaho, Iowa, and Nebraska that have more rural regions and economies that don't compare are the states where COVID-19 fatality rates have been the lowest. It doesn't make sense for states like these to devastate their economies alongside these larger, richer states when the public health crisis is not as dire for more rural states. The President of the United States has communicated to the public several times that vastly rural states like Montana and Utah must take immediate action to open their economies. The government needs to cater to each state's individual needs when it comes to making the decision in favor of public health or economic stimulation. When it comes to the smaller, less wealthy states, the longer they stay shut down, the more they will feel the disproportionate effects on their economies.

Context

In a press conference, President Trump highlighted the extent to which smaller states would suffer if lockdown rules were not relaxed.

Premises

[P1]Resources are better spent stimulating economies where the risk of economic destruction exceeds the risk from the virus. [P2] Rural states like Idaho, Iowa, and Nebraska have far fewer cases than rich, hard-hit states like New York and California. [P3] Forcing these poorer states to devastate their economies alongside the rich ones makes them suffer disproportionately the longer they stay shut. [C] Therefore, because poorer states with few cases would disproportionately suffer, government resources are better spent on economic growth.

Counter-arguments

It doesn’t matter if COVID-19 cases are relatively lower in these smaller, less wealthy states. Governments cannot place a price tag on human life. While fatality rates may be lower in these regions, the virus is still prevalent enough as to where people are dying at unnatural rates. The governor of New York has supported this stance, stating that "If it’s public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health. You cannot put a value on human life. You do the right thing.” It doesn’t matter that certain states may see a larger toll on their economies if human life is saved in the process. Those arguing that they are in regions with low cases and struggling economies should realize that the goal is to keep these cases low. If government assets aren’t spent on public health resources and management, and instead spent on reviving the economy, these states will start to see an uptick in cases. The cost will be human lives, which are more important than any economy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The comparison sets a present economic cost against a future epidemic one, and the premise uses current case numbers to measure the latter — which is what a low-incidence area stands to lose rather than what it has already lost. [Rejecting P2] Low counts in rural states partly reflected the timing of the epidemic's arrival and the amount of testing rather than any immunity to it, and several of the states named went on to record among the country's highest per-capita rates once the virus reached them. [Rejecting P3] The premise argues for tailoring policy state by state, which is the "false dichotomy" position in this debate rather than the claim that resources are better spent on growth — and public health spending is itself the condition for an economy that reopens durably.

Proponents cited

Peter Singer
“We need to think about this in the context of the well-being of the community as a whole... we are currently impoverishing the economy, which means we are reducing our capacity in the long term to provide exactly those things that people are talking about that we need — better health care services, better social-security arrangements to make sure that people aren’t in poverty... The economic costs we incur now will spill over, in terms of loss of lives, loss of quality of life, and loss of well-being.”
McKinsey & Company
“With an understanding of each region's economic structure, governments can quickly identify places where the economy can be restarted. To do that well, governments can assess both the risk of transmission and the relative economic importance of each sector”
Donald Trump
“You have very different states. If you look at Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota — that’s a lot different than New York. It’s a lot different than New Jersey...They will be able to go literally tomorrow, yes — because they’ve met all of the guidelines...”