10,000 lives saved, 440,000 jobs lost
The past year’s battle against the coronavirus put politicians, business owners and workers in a no-win situation — the health vs. wealth debate.
Choosing between safety protocols and economic losses is a daunting task. The government set a framework. Industry acted accordingly. Employees had to deal with the consequences.
California’s death total of more than 50,000 lives lost represents 1 in 10 of the nation’s tally, which topped a half-million in February. All this came after virus-fighting business limitations throttled economies, especially in California where 1 in 13 workers lost their jobs.
There’s no scorecard for what’s an acceptable result when a stubborn and unpredictable killer virus plays the leading role. In fact, just pondering the math is stomachchurning.
I learned just how tricky juggling priorities can be when I filled my trusty spreadsheet with data tracking pandemic deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and employment (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Let me make the health vs. wealth puzzle extremely succinct: Was saving nearly 10,000 California lives worth almost half a million jobs lost?
Health concerns
The CDC attributes 51,821 California deaths to the virus as of February. That’s the largest loss of life among the states.
When crunching such numbers, ugly or not, one must always consider California’s 39 million residents — the nation’s top population. The state’s pandemic toll, so far, equals 131 deaths per 100,000 — higher than 28 states and well below the 153-per-100,000 rate seen in all other states.
Now, if that doesn’t convince you that California did OK, health-wise, even after recent surges of COVID-19-related deaths, look at the numbers this way: California has 12.1% of the U.S. population but was hit by only 10.3% of the 502,400 U.S. coronavirus deaths.
Still, a huge question remains: What would have happened if California’s response had been less strict?
The data suggests 61,785 Californians might have died if the state suffered an average death rate equal to what occurred in all other states.
That translates to 9,964 California lives saved, the largest improvement nationwide. Even adjusted for population, my California estimate for lives saved was roughly 25 per 100,000 residents — topping