The high number of "You can do X but not Y" tweets, where Y seems to have a similar or lower Covid risk than X, are based on the premise that the only thing to take into account when designing restrictions is Covid risk. However, we must also examine the benefits of X and Y 1/n

I think people intuitively grasp this concept: no one has said "My GP can get within 2 metres of me in her surgery, but I can't get within two metres of my friend in a park", because people understand the benefits of GPs outweigh the risk of Covid transmission in a GP surgery 2/n

However, people seem to have trouble applying this concept more broadly: eg, the benefits of allowing children return to school outweigh the risk of Covid transmission on bus transport, but the benefits of encouraging commuters who can work remotely back into offices do not 3/n

I wonder whether my training as an economist, where a large part of our training and mindset involves thinking about and weighing tradeoffs (rather than simply ranking outcomes according to one metric, in this case transmission risk) makes this mindset easier 4/n

Does this line of reasoning strike a chord with any other economists? #econtwitter