Is There a Difference Between COVID and SARS-CoV-2?

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Is it possible that we could get people to be as worried about their general activities in the winter as they are now about COVID generally? This is my great fear. We live, look, we're all going to die of something. And so every day, each of us encounters a range of risks,. Part of that's by choice, part of that's just by happenstance and things like SARS-CoV-2 were treated as a categorically different threat.

Economist Don Boudreaux of George Mason University talks about the pandemic with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Boudreaux argues that a perfect storm of factors created a huge overreaction, including unnecessary lockdowns that accomplished little at a very high cost in physical and emotional health. Instead, Boudreaux argues, we should have focused attention on the population most at risk of dying from COVID--the elderly and especially the elderly with co-morbidities. The conversation includes a discussion of externalities and the insights of Ronald Coase applied to the policies during the pandemic.