A lot of the discussion about an inquiry into the covid response has been, in my view, poorly framed. There are massive lessons to be learned from this pandemic, but I believe that a huge segment of this is being ignored – what the cost of lockdowns will be and has already been. For this reason I spoke to wellbeing economist Paul Frijters, co-author of the book The Great Covid Panic, who believes that the cost of lockdowns outweighs the benefits 50:1 on a broad societal scale. This can be a difficult topic to explore without sounding callous, that is never my intention, but if the costs are really this great, I believe we have to understand them before we apply the same policy again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Frijters is a Professor of Wellbeing Economics at the London School of Economics: from 2016-nov 2019 at the Center for Economic Performance, thereafter at the Department of Social Policy. He completed his Masters in Econometrics at the University of Groningen, including a seven-month stay in Durban, South Africa before completing a PhD through the University of Amsterdam. He has also engaged in teaching and research at the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, QUT, UQ, and now the LSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Fritjers specializes in applied micro-econometrics, including labour, happiness, and health economics, though he has also worked on pure theoretical topics in macro and micro fields. His main area of interest is in analyzing how socio-economic variables affect the human life experience and the “unanswerable” economic mysteries in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n