Cuomo - "How Much Is A Human Life Worth?"

[Barry]

Watch this clip

How much is a human life worth?

Cuomo's answer is "Priceless"

Do you think that is true??

I'll weigh in with my comments soon.

[seedavelee]

I'll "weigh" in here on this question yet only in regard to COVID-19.
Following the CDC guidelines for reopening, it seems sensible for States to reopen when these requirements are met. Short of that it seems irresponsible. I'm "stretching" to understand the economic devastation the shut down has had on business that for many simply won't reopen, ie., the devastation has been too great, shut down lasting too long....
Through all of this (seriousness both ways - health and economic) I continue to hope that if each of us is careful about washing our hands, wearing masks when needed, social distancing, etc., we can reopen with a lot of conscious awareness to being careful. What this really means is being very clear about what causes transmission and safeguarding ourselves in this way. Unfortunately, there will be a percentage of the population that simply will relax this standard of safety, go back to automatic behaviors and well....be the ones that will contribute to what will be a second wave of infections. If this happens, I believe the economic fallout will be much worse.

Watch this clip

How much is a human life worth?

Cuomo's answer is "Priceless"

Do you think that is true??

I'll weigh in with my comments soon.

[Barry]

Watch this clip

How much is a human life worth?

Cuomo's answer is "Priceless"

Do you think that is true??

First, what is something "worth"? Typically, something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Which is interesting because it can change from person to person and from time to time. And you could say, that since you can't buy or sell a human life, it doesn't have a "price", so therefore it is "priceless".

However as the Guv points out in the video, there is a trade-off to be made between the economic price to be paid (putting aside that a high economic price often involves lives lost) vs the actual lives lost directly from covid-19.

I'll say it's very clear, that although a human life is "priceless" it is not infinite. If it were, all resources, both public and private would be dedicated to preserving every life possible, and no money would be set aside for, let's say, the arts or even education.

The conversation gets a little easier once it's abstracted a bit. Rather my life, or your life or your child's life, really the conversation is about the value of a statistical life (VSL). And that's what the current (non-)discussion is about .

Wikipedia explains it as:

Note that the VSL is very different from the value of an actual life. It is the value placed on changes in the likelihood of death, not the price someone would pay to avoid certain death. This is best explained by way of an example. From the EPA's website:

"Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying of 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.” ^[3]

This again emphasizes that VSL is more of an estimate of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks rather than how much a human life is worth."

And in fact, the number often used for the "value of a statistical life" is $10 million.

Going back to the original question, "what is a human life worth" and its context of whether to keep the economy closed longer (which is bound to save lives) or open it up, which is bound to lead to more deaths, you have to consider the other side of the question as well: what is the cost of keeping the economy closed? That might be even harder to fully access! Again, do you think it's really the right answer to keep the economy tightly closed for 6-12 months to wipe out the virus?

This is a question for politicians, not epidemiologists. Epidemiologists can tell you the best way to protect public health and what to expect from certain policies, but they can't make that trade-off between lives and economics.

Unfortunately, people's opinions about the dilemma are more about emotions than data, or even values. And being emotionally based, it's very dependent on how the story is being told, by whom, and what team you are on.

Back to policy for a moment, my take about managing this is that it needs to be more local. The risks/costs of contracting covid-19 are all about density, whether it is the density of the city/locality (such as New York City) or of a particular workplace (such as meat processing). And it's also about the density of the virus among the local population. Regulating Wyoming like New York City will impose much higher costs for each additional life saved.

[podfish]

First, what is something "worth"? Typically, something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Which is interesting because it can change from person to person and from time to time. And you could say, that since you can't buy or sell a human life, it doesn't have a "price", so therefore it is "priceless".

yeah, it's one of those 'questions' that aren't, really. Just because you can put the phrase together and say it doesn't give it meaning.

You can't put a price on a life like it was a potato. What's a sunset worth? You spend money to go see one in Hawaii, (well, not now) but it's silly to try to match that experience with a percentage of the cash flow you incurred on your trip.

[Barry]

yeah, it's one of those 'questions' that aren't, really. Just because you can put the phrase together and say it doesn't give it meaning.

You can't put a price on a life like it was a potato. What's a sunset worth? ...

And yet a "price" needs to be set, and is being set. A balance must be struck on the impact on normal (including economic) life vs public safety designed to save lives. And the price is something short of save lives at all costs. There is a price, as awkward that is.

[podfish]

And yet a "price" needs to be set, and is being set. A balance must be struck on the impact on normal (including economic) life vs public safety designed to save lives. And the price is something short of save lives at all costs. There is a price, as awkward that is.

I don't think it sets up as an algebra problem. It's tempting because it's easy, but it's a form of hunting for quantitative numbers when it's of limited utility. The 'price' isn't reducible like that. I'd say the goal isn't to save lives at all costs. Actually, I wouldn't say even that. The questions are: what policy changes should we make, at what level of disruption? how much should the government budget to spend?, how much revenue loss as a side effect of these policy changes? how much burden, financial and otherwise, should people be asked to accept? all tough, most involve money, but none are really illuminated by pretending the costs can be accurately represented by a dollar value divided by a death count. Sorry, but it's complex. This is an example of the unfortunate human habit of trivializing complexity in order to feel a decision is more rational. And don't get me started on letter grades...

[Barry]

Putting a Dollar Value on Life? Governments Already Do

[Goat Rock Ukulele]

I believe we also need to factor in that economic growth/prosperity often equals environmental destruction, especially with Fat Nixon in the White House. 5 day vacations in HI are not possible now and that is a good thing to my mind.

[geomancer]

Back in the late 1970's when evaluating the expense of seismic safety measures, our data crunchers used an expenditure of $1,000,000 per life saved, roughly $3,000,000 today.

[starlite]

$3,000,000 of federal funds, then, should go to families of each person who dies from Covid-19, since the Feds are largely responsible due to ridiculous management.

Back in the late 1970's when evaluating the expense of seismic safety measures, our data crunchers used an expenditure of $1,000,000 per life saved, roughly $3,000,000 today.

[Barry]

The Washington Post is getting around to addressing the question I raised here a few weeks ago



The government has spent decades studying what a life is worth. It hasn’t made a difference in the covid-19 crisis.

The U.S. government often studies the trade-off between cost and safety. But the White House has failed to release any analysis of the pandemic, which could offer clues to what’s ahead.

By Todd C. Frankel
May 23, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. PDT

When President Trump said in late March he didn’t think the economic devastation from stay-at-home orders was a good trade off for avoiding covid-19 deaths, tweeting, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” economists across the country already were busy working on the exact kind of cost-benefit analysis implied by the president.

They reached a very different conclusion from Trump.

Economists at the University of Wyoming estimated the economic benefits from lives saved by efforts to “flatten the curve” outweighed the projected massive hit to the nation’s economy by a staggering $5.2 trillion. Another study by two University of Chicago economists estimated the savings from social distancing could be so huge, “it is difficult to think of any intervention with such large potential benefits to American citizens.”

In other words, the economists are saying, “the cure” doesn’t come at a cost at all when factoring in the economic value of the lives saved.

What these academics are doing — and what Trump’s tweet is getting at — is measuring how the extreme efforts to avoid covid-19 deaths compare to the devastating economic fallout. They do this by putting a price tag on the deaths avoided. It’s something the federal government does all the time when deciding whether to require carmakers to install new safety features or drugmakers to add new warning labels. And it’s required by law for big-ticket new regulations, such as road safety laws and pollution controls.

But this kind of approach has been missing from the debate about how to respond to the covid-19 pandemic, which has killed almost 100,000 Americans and fueled historic unemployment rates.

The calculation — known as Value of a Statistical Life or VSL — is the amount people are willing to spend to cut risk enough to save one life. The VSL at most federal agencies, developed over several decades, is about $10 million. If a new regulation is estimated to avoid one death a year, it can cost up to $10 million and still make economic sense.

Continues here