Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

The response to COVID-19 across the world has involved lockdowns in order to "flatten the curve" of cases and deaths. This public health response was initially based on inaccurate estimates of infection mortality rates and high-risk groups, overestimating the threat from COVID-19. In addition, the response did not consider many unintended effects of lockdowns on population well-being, including so-called collateral damage (for example, unemployment, loneliness, interrupted healthcare, interrupted education), and economic recession. Recently, debate has framed decisions as a trade-off between "lives and the economy", but the speaker will argue that this could be a false dichotomy, because the economy is about lives and a cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns shows that they cause more harm than benefit in terms of population well-being and deaths. Speaker: Dr. Ari Joffe Ari Joffe MD is a pediatrician who specialized in pediatric infectious diseases and critical care medicine. He has practiced