And that is exactly why this is enforced on a state level and not left up to the individual.

Because the individual makes the wrong call for the whole.

You can isolate the individuals who are infected and misbehaving instead of the whole state.

Saying the individual makes the wrong call for the whole is remarkably stupid. The West is built on correct decisions for the whole by individuals.

Mindless politics.

COVID-19 is a smart disease, it comes off as a mild disease at first but it can still spread easily. You can even spread it without feeling symptoms yourself. If a person feels too ill to not be moving around, it would already have passed the virus down to many contacts.

Social distancing is therefore vital when patients keep coming out of nowhere. If there's a group of people they could easily spread the virus before they even know. If people don't listen, it may have to be enforced for public safety. It's the approach China, Singapore, and South Korea have done and succeeded in various levels.

It's temporary, and it's not worse than mass unnecessary deaths because there weren't enough ventilators.

If you're young and healthy, I can totally see how a lock down might feel worse than the risk of getting the coronavirus.

But it's not just about you. It's about the elderly, the sick, the weak around you. Even if you end up fine after getting the disease, you're going to transmit it to other people, directly or indirectly, who may end up dying because of you. That's what R0 is about.

So yeah, a lock down will suck for you, but I hope it makes you feel better to know that it will help save someone else's life.

Would you say that to someone whose loved one died?

When it turns out auto deaths drop, does that mean the shutdown goes on for ever? What will you say to the family of the first auto crash victim after the shutdown is lifted?

I do think it’s important to consider the pros and cons of any given policy, but I think this comparison is a bit extreme.

There are about 35k car crash deaths in the US each year [0].

I’ve seen estimates for total infection rate all over the map. Conservatively (?) if 30% of the US population is eventually infected and the fatality rate is 1%, that’s 1 million people, and basically two orders of magnitude larger for a comparable (?) time period. If we don’t do more than we currently are to limit transmission, these figures don’t seem that implausible.

Auto deaths are still a huge problem, but we can take more targeted action like improving transit coverage.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...

For some more perspective:

Italy has 3,333 deaths from car accidents per year. Currently 0.04% of Italy has confirmed covid-19. They have 1809 deaths from it.