What economic lessons has the pandemic taught us?
Unfortunately, the real world often doesnt provide the needed information to arrive at an exact answer, and COVID-19 is a perfect example of this. At the start, medical experts didnt specifically know how the virus was spread, or if and when vaccines would be ready. Economists didnt know how deep the COVID-19 recession would be, or how fast jobs would bounce back when the medical situation improved. Public leaders therefore had to make decisions about closures, restricted travel and masking without knowing precisely what was needed or the impacts. Real life decisions are much more difficult than classroom decisions  something I would always told students after I graded their assignments. Economics is about tradeoffs: One of the first things I taught students was that economics exists because we cant have everything we want. If you use resources to buy one thing, you cant use those same resources to buy something else. This is true no matter how many resources a person has. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}}  The need to make tradeoffs became apparent as soon as we realized COVID-19 was a major medical crisis. To initially control the virus spread and reduce deaths, personal contact needed to be limited. People needed to stay away from others, especially in the workplace. Yet if interactions at work were restricted, then the economy would be adversely impacted and both jobs and incomes would be lost.