Well if you yelled "Mr Smith to the phone" in Grand Central station, probably quite a bunch of men would start walking.

If you yelled "Ms Wei to the phone" in a chinese megacity,  a stampede would break loose....

The economic effects shouldd't be ignored. The 2 Trillion dollar stimulus package that congress passed is equivalent to ~50% of the investment that would be required to make the US run on 100% renewable. I'm sure that too would save millions of lives over the course of the next decades. Unemployment raises mortality rates, not to mention the broad hitting reduction in quality of life from lower economic activity. Plenty of lives and livelyhoods were destroyed in the great recession.

Of course it is a matter of balancing the economic fallout with the health concerns. But it isn't necessarily right to aim for the minimum possible amount of lives lost, depending on what that entails for the economy. That isn't how society operates when it comes to any cause of death, be it influenza, traffic or anything else. Restrictions to reduce death rates from anything have to take into account the economic effects of those restrictions - Covid19 is no different. This is much more dangerous than say the flu, so a lot more economic pain is acceptable as a side effect of restrictions, but there is a limit to how far we should go, even though that would mean more people will die from this pandemic.

The current widespread lockdown is a stop-gap to give health services more time to prepare, both by finding possible treatment methods (there are already some promising therapeutics), gathering supplies like ventilators and PPE, acquiring temporary emergency hospital beds and planning for the eventual peak. We can't shut down to this degree until we have a vaccine which, according to the Imperial College study, would be the only way we could avoid a majority of the population getting infected. Social distancing and extra hygiene will be continued for months, but not the countrywide business shutdowns and extreme social distancing we are doing right now.

The problem I have with this argument is that it makes it look like the death of potentially millions of people has no economic impact at all.

Of course that's not what you're saying, but at the end of the day who knows what would happen if this virus is left totally unrestrained? What will happen when hospitals run out of space? What if it can potentially kill 10% of the population? I mean, we already know that it will infect pretty much anybody who come in contact with it, so even if we want to be 100% cynical bastards and say that human lives have value only as long as they can be measured in monetary terms...how much damage would 30mln deaths do to the american economy? I don't know about you, but I think insurance companies are shitting their pants right now.

Coronavirus: Up to six months before life 'returns to normal' says government

It will be six months or even longer before Britain “can get back to normal”, the deputy chief medical officer has warned. Dr Jenny Harries said a review of the lockdown would be carried out within three weeks, but suggested many restrictions would stay in place much longer – even if it is judged to be working.

The UK would “need to keep that lid on”, she told the Downing Street press conference, saying people must accept they could only “gradually adjust”. She warned the public: "We must not then suddenly revert to our normal way of living. That would be quite dangerous."

On the number of deaths from the virus, she added: "We actually anticipate our numbers will get worse over the next week, possibly two, and then we are looking to see whether we have managed to push that curve down and we start to see a decline."

Prepare for this to be a slog has been the consistent message today - with the latest estimate from the deputy chief medical officer for England being that it could be around six months - that takes us until the end of October - until things are returning to normal. It may be quicker than that - it may take longer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52084517

Copied from a live reporting video:

Luxembourg and Iceland are by far the most severely hit in total number of cases right now if you take total inhabitants into account. While the US are quite a bit further down, they are climbing the ranks very fast. I expect them to hit 1000 cases per million next weekend, if not even earlier.

No need it's painful enough as is

Spoiler!

Wei means pain or painful in Luxembourgish

1)  "it isn't necessarily right to aim for the minimum possible amount of lives lost, depending on what that entails for the economy." - Teeqoz

With the shutdowns, and slowing of the spread, this will still infect millions in the US, and kill 100,000-200,000 in the 1st wave.
This is from Dr. Fauci himself, earlier on today (in a interview).

(scientists expect a 2nd wave to come, and be worse than the first one)

Where would you draw the line, between "economy" vs "deaths" ?
Lets say the US does everything it can, now to prevent this causeing too much death.... and 200k die to it.

What would you be willing to sacrifice in terms of human lives for a better economy? and how much better would it even be? Probably no one could tell you with anymore accuracy than the current projected morality this will have. 






2) "That isn't how society operates when it comes to any cause of death, be it influenza, traffic or anything else." - Teeqoz

This isnt like anything else.
What other thing kills upwards of 200,000 americans in ~3-4months time or so, each year?

Within one month, the number of people dying daily in the US from COVID-19 went from zero to higher than the total average daily deaths from homicides, suicides, motor vehicle accidents, and all drug and alcohol overdoses combined.

— Phil Libin (@plibin) March 29, 2020

^ virus deaths 500+ (today(USA)) > homicides + suicides + motor vehicle accidents + all drug and alcohol overdoses combined (daily avg).
(these numbers will within a week or two, probably reach 2000+ deaths pr day)






3) "Restrictions to reduce death rates from anything have to take into account the economic effects of those restrictions - Covid19 is no different."

Even if so, guess what? almost every country choose to do a full lockdown anyways.
Is every world leader stupid? do you think you have better knowledge on hand than everyone else? Theres probably plenty of them doing the math, and trying to get this balance act right, however its still judged too early to do anything other than trying to slow spread.

4) "The current widespread lockdown is a stop-gap to give health services more time to prepare, both by finding possible treatment methods (there are already some promising therapeutics), gathering supplies like ventilators and PPE, acquiring temporary emergency hospital beds and planning for the eventual peak. We can't shut down to this degree until we have a vaccine which, according to the Imperial College study, would be the only way we could avoid a majority of the population getting infected. Social distancing and extra hygiene will be continued for months, but not the countrywide business shutdowns and extreme social distancing we are doing right now."  - Teeqoz

That sounds twisted.
You have things the wrong way around right?

If we had a vaccine, we could open everything up again, after giveing it to people or risk groups (not shut things down, then).
If we were prepaired, we wouldnt need to try so hard to stop spread.  Their doing that now, because they arnt prepaired, and hopeing it minimised deaths.

Both of the cases you made, were flipped around, compaired to normal logic.

700k now. At this rate we will hit a million cases Wednesday morning.

Okay, first of all, this pandemic doesn't have a 10% fatality rate. From the countries that have done widespread testing, even the hospitalization rate doesn't reach 10%.

Second, at the risk of being misconstrued, the economic impact from the lives lost depend on the age distribution. It's worse for the economy to lose a 25 year old than an 85 year old. The average age of those that have died in Italy is about 80 years old. It would be a rather different picture of it killed loads of people between 20 and 40 years old.

Third, it's not an either/or thing. We don't have to choose between completely shutting down non-essential services and letting the virus spread completely unabated. That is what flattening the curve is all about.

I'm not saying it doesn't matter because it mostly kills the elderly. My grandmother is over 80 and have several of the worst comorbidities with Covid19. She would very likely succumb if she were to be infected, but luckily she is taking it very seriously, and has self isolated in her apartment. I won't be seeing her in person until this is over, and I'm very grateful for the opportunities modern technology has given to allow the family to stay in touch with her. I'm just saying that we can't lose all perspective and we still need a degree of pragmatism. Targeted measures for the people in high risk groups might be almost as effective while doing a lot less economic damage. 

You lose your life, your not getting it back.

You lose your job, a month lateron you might have a new one?

Why are we putting anywhere near equal value on a human life, and job?

"You either earn your own money or live off welfare."

And? whats your point? people on welfare > tons of people dieing right?


"On the other hand, corona infections are not binary, because being infected by it leads to very different results."

I dont get this..... your logic still follow that  Loseing Job = dieing people ?
And somehow getting corona virus and possibily dieing is better than loseing your job?




"The vast majority of infected has no symptoms or only mild to moderate ones, so they'll recover rather easily over a period of up to two weeks."

Yes, however some of these "mild" infected that dont need to be hospitalised are caughing up blood, and have scared lunges.
A few years from now, you might see a wave of people, that are too sick to work anymore (ruined lunges).

Is it better they work now, and risk ruining their lunges, and lateron not be able to work at all.
Or that they dont work now, dont risk their lunges, and can work lateron?


You assume, that people that get this virus, are all just 100% okay afterwards.
Thats not true.  <-------

Some of these people will have near ruined lunges afterwards.
Some have damaged liver, and kidney's funktions reduced.

maybe its more expensive down the line (5-10 years from now) to keep these people alive with medicin/help/operations, than to protect them now from getting to such a point in the future?


Theres a balance act here too.






"But the way people go about it is that corona is kinda like a death sentence and therefore super scary for our society. Step back for a moment and look at newly reported unemployment; those figures are a lot scarier than the climbing number of corona infections and related deaths."

Because right now, your only seeing the very tip of the ice berg.
Once theres like 2-3million infected in the USA, and 200,000 deaths.... you might view it differntly?

You dont get to go "if only I knew how bad things would get" with this type of thing.
You cant travel back in time, and get a due over.

If you are too lax on preventing spread, those numbers could climb drastically.

But even the experts are telling you we're trying to flatten the curve rather than stop the spreading. The same number will be infected in both scenarios, more people will manage to survive if the curve is flattened. Flattening the curve will NOT alter the course of the disease or change the total number of infected individual.

Almost all of those who will get their lungs scarred by the virus will get their lungs scarred in both scenarios (flattening the curve or letting it peak), almost all of those who will end up damaged kidneys will get damaged kidneys regardless of how flat the curve is, so on so forth. The ONLY medical intervention that could benefit from flattening the curve as of now is artificial ventilation, which only helps a SUBSET of people and mostly the elderly. One could argue flattening the curve would buy us some time to get more ventilators and hospital space ready but at what cost? 

The coronavirus and the rhinovirus have been causing the common cold for so long, the flu has been around since forever, no effective medication was ever effective against those. Humans are terrible at making medications against viruses, but sometimes brilliant at making vaccines. How long until one is ready though?