Would letting the pandemic rip hurt the economy more than lockdowns?

[teo123]

Hi, @Red!
Elsewhere, you said that you think that it's possible that letting the pandemic rip might have even hurt the economy more than lockdowns did. I said that I don't think that's possible, because COVID-19 almost exclusively kills the retired people, who are no longer productive. That didn't convince you, because elderly people provide free childcare and are consumers.
So, here is a paper by Douglas Ward Allen that tries to numerically estimate the cost-benefit ratio of the lockdowns. The key part starts at the page 29:
https://www.sfu.ca/~allen/LockdownRepor ... df#page=29
According to his calculations, even if lockdowns worked as advertized (decreasing deaths from COVID-19 by around 80%), the cost-benefit ratio would be around 3.6:1, meaning that lockdowns damaged the economy 3.6 times as much as "let it rip" would. And he thinks that a much more reasonable estimate (more in line with the empirical data) is 282:1.
I am not an economist (I got a D in my economics course at the university), but his arguments sound compelling to me. How about you, @Red?

[Red]

I see what's going on here Teo, you're attempting to rope me into these debates to satiate your boredom. Well, I'm not your guinea pig, and I don't have time for this bullcrap, and I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. I've already wasted enough time. It isn't like you're gonna change your mind anyway.

FYI, that Douglas Ward Allen guy is a right-winged nutcase who argues against same-sex marriage.

In 2014, he testified as an expert witness in defense of Michigan's marriage laws. At the end of his four-hour testimony, plaintiff attorney Ken Mogill asked him: "Professor Allen, yes or no, are gays going to hell?" Allen replied: "Unless they repent, yes."

Not sure if I'd really trust anything he has to say, especially on COVID lockdowns. You're so good at picking cherries Teo, maybe you should go into that instead of Computer Science.