Timothy Taylor on Joshua Gans and the pandemic/economy tradeoff

A COVID-19 Two-Pronged Choice: Production Possiblity Frontiers, at Conversable Economist.

Definitely worth a read. Plus, Taylor links to Gans's book, which "is freely available on-line..."

In the future, when people are looking back to see what was known and argued when the pandemic was hitting, this book will be a natural starting point.

And

For the rest of us, this framework helps to explain issues like why the social distancing rules were put in place so abruptly, why trying to take a half-way approach to social distancing would have probably imposed lots of economic costs with few health gains, and why choosing to prioritize health helps to avoid the "drift" that would otherwise occur as the pandemic evolved.