We shouldn't rush to postpone Brazil's Olympics over the Zika virus - the economic impact might not be worth it

Should Brazil’s Olympics be postponed? When 150 public health experts, medical scientists and academics from around the world make the case, it’s impossible to dismiss the idea.

The experts have issued an open letter to the World Health Organisation in which they argue the possibility of the Zika pandemic in Brazil spreading around the world due to the Games makes proceeding with this competition in August “unethical.”

The scientific qualifications of the letter’s authors are not in question. But it’s a shame that nowhere in their letter do they refer to the economic costs that could be incurred as a result of postponing the Games – not only by the Brazilian economy but also by the athletes and sporting federations from around the world who are scheduled to compete in August.

Perhaps this sounds like a bizarre, even a crass, observation. Zika is a virus that is strongly believed to cause babies to be born with abnormally small heads and may also cause a fatal neurological syndrome in adults. How can one weigh such serious health risks against money? Isn’t this immoral?

The answer is no. Our societies do this all the time – even if discussion of the trade-off is taboo. We weigh human lives against money. Indeed, it would be undemocratic not to.

One of the biggest sources of risk to human life in rich countries is not terrorism, nor plane crashes, nor illegal drugs, nor any of the other perils that dominate news bulletins, but road accidents.

The safest way to eradicate road traffic accidents would be to shut down the roads and ban all cars. But we don’t do that – and no one seriously argues we should do that – because we all recognise there are countervailing economic and social benefits from automotive transport.

That’s obviously an extreme proposal. But it’s the less extreme proposal that makes really makes the point. Short of shutting down the roads, there are certainly many investments we could undertake and restrictions we could impose to make road transport safer. Some of them we do. But others we don’t. Why? Because it would be prohibitively expensive. That’s the kind of trade-off we, as societies, make between life and money.

What has this got to do with the Brazil Olympics? The answer is that the same kind of cost-benefit analysis ought to be applied. What is the number of people whose health could suffer, or whose lives could be blighted, by holding the Olympics on the existing timetable? And what is the likely expense of postponing the Games?

Let’s consider a counterfactual. Would the authors of the letter argue that it would be unethical to proceed with the Games if we somehow knew it would only result in a single additional person in the whole world being at risk of contracting Zika? Of course not – that would be a massive over-reaction. The damage to the welfare of the people negatively affected by the decision would clearly outweigh the life of the person affected.

But what this hypothetical case shows is that human life is really always weighed against money. The important question is: how big is the potential risk to health and how big is the likely cost?

That is why letters from experts urging specific policies and certain ways of using public resources which only focus on one element of this calculation can actually do more harm than good. By using terms such as “unethical” without even acknowledging the trade-off that politicians and public authorities have to make, they have framed the debate unhelpfully.

They make it appear there is actually no difficult trade-off to be made by people in positions of responsibility – and that their only “ethical” consideration should be to potential Zika victims.

The objection is not that such tactics embarrass those in authority. Rather it’s that they are often extremely effective. When a health lobby wins the backing of powerful media voices, it is a rare politician in a democratic country who can withstand the clamour and apply an objective cost-benefit appraisal of a proposal of how to deploy public funds. All too often the result is rushed decisions and questionable judgements.

Nor is the objection based on the fact that such decisions tend to be better if reached after a comprehensive and careful calculation of costs and benefits. They are not. Or, at least, we cannot prove that they are because there is often no clear answer as to the economic costs that decisions with complex and hard-to-trace effects such as postponing sporting events will impose.

Moreover, nor is there any scientifically right or wrong answer about how the benefit of saved human lives ought to be weighed against economic cost. If decisions were made on that utilitarian basis, it is unlikely rich governments would spend money on coast-guards to rescue their own citizens from downing – let alone migrants trying to reach their shores on rickety boats. Nor would public money be spent on vaccines for extremely rare, but horrific, diseases.

The point is not that there is a correct answer in such cases. Rather it is that we should want the authorities to face up to and have the courage to estimate costs and benefits when reaching their sometimes agonising decisions. However much we may individually yearn for a particular outcome, it is this process that protects the broad public interest.