# An Ethical Formula for Pandemic Lockdowns

Originally devised in 2020.

An unused day is like a small death; a period of potential taken away forever. The average person accomplishes significantly less in a lockdown than in freedom. This means that one death can be counted every time this collectively lost potential adds up to a region’s life expectancy. Here is a procedure for calculating the number of _lockdown deaths_ in a given region:

- Let _p_ represent population;
- let _l_ represent average life expectancy in years;
- let _d_ represent duration of a lockdown in days; and
- let _0 ≤ q ≤ 1_ represent quality of life.
- _q_ can be derived from:
- _(100 - lockdown stringency) ÷ 100_ provided that _lockdown stringency_ is in %; or
- surveying affected people about quality of life during a lockdown.

Number of lockdown deaths = _(1 - q) ⋅ p ⋅ d ÷ 365 ÷ l_.

As the number of lockdown deaths decreases, the number of actual deaths caused by a pandemic would increase, and vice versa. This equation can be used to model the ideal ratio of lockdown to freedom—the minimum total death.