By Don Hall

Once you take the time to strip the vitriol and stupidity from Twitter (a task of almost  Sisyphusian effort) the debates online about whether to continue to practice shelter-in-place or start to re-open businesses in the face of the very distinct probability of a spike in COVID-19 cases are primarily a struggle with an ethical dilemma.

While I slap my forehead and grind my molars routinely as I read through the statements of uniformed opinion (Las Vegas Mayor Goodman being one of the most publicized morons on the cairn pile) I understand the perspectives on both sides of the shit-flinging.

It is not, as so many have said, a suggestion to put a price on lives. We put prices on lives every single day. Just over 2,800 people died in the Twin Towers almost twenty years ago and we spent billions of dollars per person in changes to our routines and subsequent war. The lives of the undocumented come at a price on their head with money spent to prevent them from living lives here and building walls to keep them out.

If we didn’t place a price on the cost of human life, automobiles would cost triple what they do now because of the myriad safety features we have deemed too expensive.

The question isn’t do we put a price on human life? but what costs do we place upon it? And this is answered within a framework of context.

By April 22:
181,000 people have died from this pandemic globally.
47,000 have died in the United States from it.
163 have died in Nevada.

181,000 out of 7 billion doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
47,000 out of 320 million. Not unmanageable.
163 out of 3.2 million. What’s the big deal, right?

Why not re-open the economy and let this thing run its course?

Before we do that, however, let’s change the framework a bit.

In Las Vegas, approximately 300,000 people have been furloughed, laid off, or outright fired in a matter of six weeks. It’s a devastation.

What if (in the sort of world of magical What If’s that only reside in science fiction and Harry Potter books) death number 164—let’s call him Carl—what if by decapitating him on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Avenue, 150,000 of those  jobs were instantly restored? What if we could restore all 300,000 if we broadcast Carl’s biography, show his family, and the beheading on international television and required 80 percent of the population of the United States watch it?

Carl, in this hypothetical, is no longer an abstract number. He is a human being with a human life.

Context.

No one with a business wants to see all the investment of time, effort, and, of course, money required to start it all up and sustain it be swept away in a matter of three months of pandemic. No one wants to see a family lose their home because grandma got cancer and the hospital system bankrupts them, but to suggest we put millions of lives at risk (or at least Carl) so they can keep their home would be met with eye rolls and empty sympathy.

If a guy builds a balsa wood home on the coast of Florida and then a few years later a hurricane blows it to Tennessee, do we blame the hurricane? Would we willingly lop off Carl’s head to save the home?

What if Carl was a Trump supporter?
What if Carl was a Socialist?
What if Carl was an undocumented immigrant?
What if Carl was black?
Gay?
A Cubs fan?

What price do we put on a life and which businesses are worth those prices?