Let us look at what it means to chew gum and walk at the same time in terms of Covid and the economy.
There are many different angles from which you can the interplay between Covid and the economy- or let me put it simply- OUR economy (I have to talk in Canadian terms because that is where I live, but I promise you this will be relatable for our neighbors to the south and others). My view is that working on them is like walking and chewing gum- we must be capable of working on both at the same time because we are in fact capable of doing it, and because our world is no longer our own unless we can do it. Look, we function within a certain set of principles, forces and rules that shape our world. Growing our economy is one of them, it allows us to pay for more things, make those things better, then pay more money for version 2.0 and so on.
As I was replying to that heartfelt comment, I realized my analogy best fits the scenario we face with rapid tests for Covid. As soon as one of them is approved in Canada, it will be a total game changer. They would be simple enough to use at home, CBC news reported they may cost as little as $5 if produced at (national?) scale, and they could literally be bought by the government, schools, businesses and individuals. Technically, you could do a test every day before you go to work, school, a retirement home etc. What is even more important is that it will best protect the elderly by bringing the number of sick people they are exposed to down to near zero; also, it will help people who are asymptomatic figure out they have Covid and then hopefully they isolate! Sounds great, does it not?
Well no, no it does not sound great. Why? Because we need that "pesky" economy those mean people keep warning us we need to save! What is economy in this case? It is the flow of money necessary to buy these tests. If our Canadian government wants to buy them, it needs money. Without tax revenue and the portion of it allocated towards OHIP and let us also say a portion of the national defense budget, our government cannot buy the necessary millions upon millions of these tests. It will be impossible to do so. Now, even without enough tax revenue paid by businesses and employees, our government can borrow money to buy the tests. Only problem is, there is such a pesky thing as Moody's rating or other ratings by different agencies which tell creditors how likely Canada is to pay back its debt, as well as possibly how fast it can do it. This can affect the amount of money our government can borrow as well as the favorability of the loan terms and conditions. If our government cannot count on ever increasing tax revenue because the economy is shrinking, it will go from that person who qualifies for low interest credit cards all day any day, to the person who can barely get a high interest payday loan. Now, let us say that our government refuses to buy the tests, passing that responsibility on to individuals, businesses and schools. This can only be possible if said businesses, schools and individuals are profiting. Or, failing that, they need to at least make enough money to convince creditors to either extend or keep extending loans to them so they can buy those tests en masse. Now, let us say that the responsibility is pushed down to the individual, and that the tests are made in such a way that you need to scratch in the date you took the test or something, and that is your day pass to the world outside of your home for that day. At $5 a piece, if you are out every day, you need to spend $1,825 per year to do so. Now, our government could let us claim this expense as tax deductible but that does not help people with low income. The government could promise to cover fifty percent of the cost of each test per individual up to one per day, but that still makes this a notable yearly expense and we will still pay for the other fifty percent through our taxes.
Nevertheless, whoever ends up paying for these tests, the result is the same- it will help us push infection, hospitalization and death rates way down to the point we can have our economy back so we can keep affording tests as well as the vaccine that our Canadian government has to pay for with- you guessed it- the taxes it collects from participants in a healthy and growing economy!
So, dearest readers, I ask you once again: Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? Can we afford not to? My answer, without a doubt, is no we cannot.