The Spectator: is it time to measure COVID differently?

Should we really be using raw death figures – which are hugely emotive – to influence decisions as to how to handle the pandemic, asks Ross Clark in The Spectator? “Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science at the LSE and his colleagues have made a case for using a broader measure of the impact of Covid, which takes into account life-years lost as well as the loss of wellbeing among the population at large. The problem with raw death figures is that they do not tell you how much life is lost: the death of an otherwise healthy 20 year old would count the same as the death of a nonagenarian who was already suffering from lung cancer.” Read article.