THOU SHALT NOT KILL THE ECONOMY.

Never before have national governments sought to curb the spread of a disease by closing down economic activity and forcing people to cease living their daily lives. The objective, stated at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, was to “flatten the curve” of the spread of the virus by instituting massive economic shutdowns until a vaccine was developed.

The idea of applying economy-wide lockdowns to curb a virus was mythical from the start, the product of a theoretical diagram that appeared to show how the impact of a virus could be dragged out over time, thereby reducing its impact and saving lives. It is now clear that the expansion curve of COVID-19 has not been flattened. Cases are rising, prompting journalists such as Andrew Nikiforuk to declare: “So much for bending the curve. That national policy has failed.”

The Trudeau Liberal COVID-19 flatten-the-curve battle plan has indeed failed, but not for the reasons cited by Nikiforuk.

He promoted a “discussion paper” produced by an outfit in Ottawa called Global Canada — headed by a former Bombardier executive, McKinsey consultant and World Economic Forum official — proposing a lockdown to end all lockdowns. “Canada,” says Global Canada, “needs a debate on the plausibility and relative cost/benefit of a zero COVID transmission strategy.”

Zero COVID sounds good, to be viewed perhaps as a companion policy to net zero carbon emissions. But it's a little late for a cost/benefit analysis of COVID policy. Where were the calls for cost/benefit analyses last March and May? Canadian governments, businesses and individuals have incurred more than half-a-trillion dollars in costs so far, but as COVID cases rise, where are the equal-value benefits?

Next week Canadians may hear from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland how deep into the red sea Ottawa has sunk. Will it be $400 billion? The provinces have incurred tens of billions more in deficit spending.

What has been the purpose of this build-up of debt and escalating costs?

One conclusion seems clear: Across most of Canada, total spending on preparing the health-care system — hospitals, staffing, intensive care units, testing systems, nurses, workers, long-term care regimes — to handle the inevitable spread of COVID-19 has been dwarfed by massive populist redistributions of cash.

How many hospital beds and temporary facilities could be installed for $400 billion?

How much does it cost to set up the right testing systems to track the virus?

Paradoxically, the flatten-the-curve failure has produced more calls for more stringent lockdowns. Ann Collins, head of the Canadian Medical Association, said last Friday that Canada's doctors are calling for a “circuit breaker” two-week “emergency lockdown” and “tougher restrictions.”

In her statement, Collins dismissed the economic cost problem: “The strength of the economy should not come at the expense of Canadians' lives.”

That view — that the lives and health of individuals matter more than economic considerations — reflects a political and moral position that lies at the root of the COVID-19 policy crisis.

In her recent report, An Equity Approach to COVID-19, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Theresa Tam, wrote: “The bottom line: no one is protected until everyone is protected.”

A more explicit statement of the principle was delivered the other day by Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, who wagged a Biblical finger at a group of demonstrators. Quoting the Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”) out of context, Pallister told the demonstrators, “Maybe you could reflect on that a little bit when you consider the dangers that COVID is posing to real Manitobans right now.”

To imply that holding anti-lockdown views is equivalent to murder seems a tad over the top, although that sentiment in fact underlies the political premise and moral justification for sweeping economic restrictions and more lockdowns.

Arguments against economic lockdowns are seen as morally equivalent to dismissing the lives of individual COVID-19 victims.

A version of this thinking was repeated last week by U.S. policy scientist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota — and a member of president-elect Joe Biden's new coronavirus advisory board. In a podcast, Osterholm said, “There is no trade-off between health and the economy.”

Osterholm argues that the U.S. should have imposed a major economic shutdown back in April. That would have flattened the curve, he claims. Failure to lock down last spring set the stage for the current growth in U.S. COVID cases. The U.S. now needs to impose a massive five-to-six-week lockdown, says Osterholm, including national mandated sheltering in place for everyone but essential workers.

But Osterholm's claim that there is no trade-off between health and economic costs is based on some fancy economic analysis that claims the costs can be covered by major borrowing at low interest rates and deploying the savings of millions of people who have not been able to spend as much as usual during the pandemic.

As president, Joe Biden — along with Canadian and political leaders around the world — will have to choose between a zero COVID strategy based on the idea that there is no healthto-economy trade-off, and the alternative proposition, which could be paraphrased as: Thou shalt not kill the economy.