Don't know why, but I've been thinking a lot recently about mass casualty events. Mass casualty events are caused by natural disasters, wars, etc.

Let's say there is a hypothetical pandemic that will kill 400-600k Americans in the span of 12-24 months.... /THREAD

Let's say that the value of a statistical life (VSL) if $10M. Yes, I know there are all sorts of problems with VSL estimates, but still, human lives must be worth *something* so even if it's way off, it's a useful indicator.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3379967

If 400-600k Americans die prematurely because of a pandemic and a human life is worth $10M, that is a $4-6T blow to the economy. Even if a life is only worth $1M, that is still $400-600B. That's a lot.

We have *many* reasons to tackle the pandemic (security, public health, personal happiness,...). But we also have a significant economic incentive to do so.

In all, this means investing $3T+ on stimulus, recovery, stay-at-home measures, business protections, etc. to shorten/soften the pandemic is easily worth it to avoid $4-6T in damages. /END