THERE ARE NO SOLUTIONS, ONLY TRADEOFFS.

I could probably use that title on every post, but I'm trading off economy of expression for variety in composition.  The coronavirus-related version of that theme appeared early in the shutdowns, and it's a message that requires reinforcement.  Benjamin Powell respects Texas's eased mitigations accordingly.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to eliminate the state’s mask mandate and capacity restrictions on businesses, effective March 10, was condemned by critics as reckless. But the governor’s rollback better aligns Texas policy with science: economic science that is.

Epidemiologists don’t have a monopoly on advice regarding how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, epidemiology has nothing to say about how humans should evaluate the trade-offs between various activities they value and the level of health risk they’re willing to accept to engage in those activities. Economic science is the discipline that studies these competing values.

If it's not infectious in the sense of Fauci, it's not something Fauci and his ilk consider.

Economists have long appreciated that most tradeoffs are best left for individuals to make for themselves. Individuals know their personal preferences better than anyone else and usually bear the burden of bad choices and reap the reward of good choices. The presence of COVID-19 doesn’t alter this basic insight.

The economic case for government mask mandates and business-occupancy limitations hinges on virus transmission “externalities,” or spillover effects. Such externalities occur when people weigh their own health risks against the benefits of engaging in desirable, even risky, activities without accounting for how their actions might affect others—in this case, infecting them with COVID-19.

Writing in the Southern Economic Journal, economists Peter Leeson and Louis Rouanet of George Mason University found that the size of the COVID-19 transmission externality is much smaller than most people realize, largely due to the vigilance of business owners, who understand that increased transmission to customers and employees will cause further damage to their firms.

Mr Powell would rather have more economists advising public officials; that puts too much responsibility on an expert who might simply say "bet on emergence."  John Stossel gets it.  "When the pandemic ends, politicians will take credit, but the solution, as usual, began when politicians got out of the way."  Bet on emergence, forsooth.