As the state government's POLICY analyst, you have been asked to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for three options in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) do nothing, (2) "weak" shutdown, and (3) "strong" shutdown.

As the SOCIAL planner, what COSTS and BENEFITS should you include? example how will it affect vaccination cost, death rates, unemployment. How would you expect the costs and benefits, in dollar terms and timing, to differ between these options?

Measuring costs The most common perspectives considered in CEA are of a hypothetical "social planner\" and of a patient. Costs from the social planner's perspective Public insurers will conduct or commission CEAs from a social planner's perspective. In this case, the analyst should include all costs associated with a treatment borne by anyone in society, no matter who ends up paying for them. The costs include the direct costs paid by the insurer and patient for the care received. If the treatment causes the patient to miss work, then the costs should include the monetary value of lost work time. If the treatment requires help of family members for care, then the family's lost leisure time (typically measured by the income they receive from work) should also be included. The exception to counting all costs is if the treatment includes prescription drugs or other inputs priced at monopoly levels. In these cases, only the marginal cost should be counted because any money paid above marginal cost goes to the producer as monopoly profits. From the social planner's perspective, the net cost of the treatment is its marginal cost of production