Mr. Ridgway, with all due respect, I believe you are missing the point of the test which you refer. It is not only about which child will wait for gratification. The test goes far beyond that. It allows each respondent to determine if waiting for the “better” reward is worth the wait, or provides a better return on the investment. If the reward was triple, I wonder how many more children would choose the “wait” option. Likewise if the reward was only a 20% increase how many would have taken the immediate gratification.

This is what we are facing with the current situation. Are the “gains” we make tied to COVID worth the long term economic ramifications? Given what the statistics currently tell us about virus impact, I do not believe so. 30K dead and climbing vs. 22M without jobs and also climbing. Based on our past national experiences with deep recessions and even a depression, we are not even close to projecting an even trade. The long term economic impact of a total shut down is catastrophic.

We speak as if infection is a death sentence. It isn’t for the vast (and I mean vast) majority of the public, outside of a few specific subgroups. Researchers at Stanford have already shown we are probably grossly under-reporting infection rates as it is (possibly by a factor of 80) which drastically reduces the already low mortality rates. IMO, we are better off allowing the virus to spread, gain herd immunity, and get past all of this.