Krugman writes: "If you aren't terrified both by Covid-19 and by its economic consequences, you haven't been paying attention."
Wisconsin Republican leaders gave citizens a choice on Tuesday: give up their vote or go to the polls and risk their and their neighbors' health. (photo: Tannen Maury/EPA/Shutterstock)
12 April 20
f you aren’t terrified both by Covid-19 and by its economic consequences, you haven’t been paying attention.
Even though social distancing may be slowing the disease’s spread, tens of thousands more Americans will surely die in the months ahead (and official accounts surely understate the true death toll). And the economic lockdown necessary to achieve social distancing — as I’ve been saying, the economy is in the equivalent of a medically induced coma — has led to almost 17 million new claims for unemployment insurance over the past three weeks, again almost surely an understatement of true job losses.
Yet the scariest news of the past week didn’t involve either epidemiology or economics; it was the travesty of an election in Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court required that in-person voting proceed despite the health risks and the fact that many who requested absentee ballots never got them.
