If they're pausing the nonessential economy, I don't see where it stops "I have a biology degree and experience, I'll transition from a paused job into a research team working on Covid-19".

What it stops is "I need to perform some trivial make-work job because the hotel/bar/unessential retail I used to work at shut down, and otherwise I starve and get evicted, so I'm going to traipse around and weaken quarentine procedures."