It's going to hurt.

But if we don't do it, the thing spreads, and we're forced to do it anyway a few weeks later, like Italy.

Korea seems to be the best example of what has worked well, but I don't know a lot of the details. Seems like a good example to follow, but we're falling down in the US - we can't even test people.

What about an economic pause for 2 months? All rent/mortgage payments are paused, you only have to deal with the most critical costs (food, utilities) for a short period of time and then the economy resumes as best it can after the threat is gone? Of course, its not like it'll go away after just 2 months.

We told our tenants not to bother with next month's rent.

To be honest, I don't think it will be too bad. Just speculating here, but events like this only really hurt when they occur asymmetrically (think 9/11 or housing crisis)

Everyone is going to be rocked by this at basically the same time.