Even if you want to eliminate the economic value of life and only consider their moral value, you still need to consider the economic value of avoiding hospitalization, which is about $100/day. It’s highly unlikely that buying malaria nets is higher value than actions you can take that will meaningfully contribute to overwhelming an expensive hospital system.
I don’t think it’s unlikely at all; I don’t think that $100/day would be used for something nearly as cost-effective as bednets if it weren’t being spent on healthcare. Hospitals and governments will spend what it takes to handle the coronavirus in patients, up to a pretty high limit per patient.
I think a more important concern might be limited medical resources and triaging, but that should go into the cost-effectiveness analysis model, and it’s not something I should speculate about without expertise.
Even if you want to eliminate the economic value of life and only consider their moral value, you still need to consider the economic value of avoiding hospitalization, which is about $100/day. It’s highly unlikely that buying malaria nets is higher value than actions you can take that will meaningfully contribute to overwhelming an expensive hospital system.
I don’t think it’s unlikely at all; I don’t think that $100/day would be used for something nearly as cost-effective as bednets if it weren’t being spent on healthcare. Hospitals and governments will spend what it takes to handle the coronavirus in patients, up to a pretty high limit per patient.
I think a more important concern might be limited medical resources and triaging, but that should go into the cost-effectiveness analysis model, and it’s not something I should speculate about without expertise.