Arthur Caplan: ‘If You Put the Economy Ahead of Public Health … You’re Going to Ruin the Economy Anyway’

CAPLAN: "Well, if you put the economy ahead of public health and then you have people dropping like flies from the pandemic, you’re going to ruin the economy anyway. There’s no choice about this. It’s got to lean toward public health. You have to tamp down the pandemic, as Sanjay said. We’re two weeks behind where the virus is, so when the President starts talking about we’re going to open up, we’re going to open up for business, not only are we arguing about, you know, are we going to wait 15 days and then go back to normal? He’s undermining the efforts to keep people socially distant now because what they hear is, well, you know, we’ve got to open up the economy or maybe the social distancing doesn’t matter so much. So, morally, you know, it’s public health over the economy in the short run."