A cost-benefit analysis has defined the debate over the coronavirus lockdown from the very beginning. And now, just as critics of the lockdown predicted, we’re starting to see serious costs emerge that weren’t fully considered by shutdown proponents, both in the form of deaths from economic despair and in the societal mental health impact of long-term isolation.

Some proponents of the shut-everything-down approach falsely framed the issue as a question of lives versus GDP, profits, or stock prices. In reality, the economy is itself a matter of life and death — and a new study supports this.