The ethics of social choices and the role of economists in a pandemic

I discuss here how economics can help policy makers to make hard decisions about saving lives in a pandemic. I criticise two views which may seem deceptively appealing in the public debate: First, the idea that decisions are not hard because there is no trade-off to make when considering lives saved; Second, the idea that economics provides a simple and correct way to make decisions using standard evaluations of the cost of lives saved. I argue that, in a democracy, hard decisions, involving trade-offs of lives saved versus other economic and social considerations, have to reflect the preferences of the citizens. The role of economists is to facilitate policy decision making by clarifying the moral principles people would be willing to follow when hard decisions have to be made, and to inform politicians about the specific trade-offs which would reflect these preferences.