Biden's vaccine mandates are right response to save US economy

SINCE the onset of the coronavirus disease at the end of 2019 and its ensuing spread worldwide, two schools of thoughts have emerged regarding the relationship between the effects of the pandemic and the condition of the economy.

The debate was about whether the measures that medical experts insisted were required to lower the rate of Covid-19 infections - in particular, locking down major population centres and shutting down or stifling business and social activities - would be cost-effective. Or put another way, the lockdowns would not only shrink economic output, but also translate into devastating human costs - as people lose their jobs, businesses collapse and families go hungry. Would the cure prove to be worse than the disease?

Mainstream economists and the political leadership in the United States and other Western countries concluded that the major threat to the economy was the pandemic itself. The economy would only stagnate, even decline, if more and more people get hospitalised and die. Hence, the major goal of governments since 2020 has been to fight the virus, even if that meant temporary shutdown of economic sectors, and eventually by developing a vaccine to kill the coronavirus, at least stem its spread.