Ben Shapiro suggests that an elderly person dying from coronavirus isn't as significant as a young person

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has caused controversy after suggesting that an elderly person dying from coronavirus isn't as bad as a younger person dying from the illness.

Appearing on Tuesday's edition of YouTube talk show The Rubin Report, he discussed what factors will be taken into consideration when it comes to finally lifting the lockdown measures and return society to normalcy.

That would seem like a fairly grown-up conversation to be having at right now but as always, Shapiro can't risk saying something that doesn't come across as completely inconsiderate to others.

In his wisdom, the many elderly people that have died during the pandemic should not a factor as their lives were coming to an end anyway and their loss isn't a troubling as the death of a 30-year-old, for instance.

Nobody just wants to say the obvious truth, which is that we’re all making actuarial deductions about what are the costs in terms of how many human lives, how many years of life.

If somebody who is 81 dies of Covid-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of Covid-19. I mean, if this were killing children, everyone would be in lockdown forever.

…If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that’s tragic and it’s terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80, so that is not the same thing.

In moral terms, you want to save every life you can, at the same time, to pretend that it is of the same calculation, the age of the person, no public policy acts like that, not a single public policy in America acts like that.