Risky Climate
The Weird Way That Virus Testing Is Just Like A Carbon Tax
Testing and taxing are important steps in the fights against the pandemic and climate change— but both have their limits.
Medical personnel perform a "drive-thru" coronavirus test at a lab set up by a local community center in West Palm Beach, Florida on March 16, 2020.
Photographer: Chanda Khanna/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Shutting down was the easy part.
Covid-19’s daily exponential growth to the tune of 33% or more dwarfed all other concerns. The choice was between “shut down now” or “shut down later.” Shutting down the U.S. a week earlier would have cut deaths by around a factor of 3, two weeks earlier by around a factor of 10.