Today, in your recommended reading pile: a paper from the Institute for New Economic Thinking, comparing data from dozens of COVID-19 hotspots. “Strict lockdowns work, and they work swiftly, within four to six weeks,”  Phillip Alvelda, Thomas Ferguson and John C. Mallery write. 

Their first recommendation? “Save the economy by saving lives first.” 

One chart compares death rates per million to the economic impact of lockdowns. “The worse the pandemic was allowed to get, the more the costs of dealing with it piled up, which directly impacted the overall costs to the economy. No amount of spending to bolster the economy with fiscal or monetary stimulus changed this near-straight line relationship.”

And the U.S., which “invested in economic stimulus while allowing the virus to continue proliferating, continue[s] to suffer from unabated community transmission, deepening the economic damage quarter after quarter as the virus spreads.”

Go read the whole thing here.