It's bad either way - keeping the lockdown in place for too long or relaxing it too early.

The goal is to find the right balance - the least worst option.

Sure, okay, but I think it's pretty darn clear that we're far away from needing to consider that.

When the number of new cases starts going down we can begin having this conversation.

Why would we wait to begin having the conversation?

Because if you start talking about it too early then people will change their behaviour too early.

Because we don't have enough information yet. We still don't really know how deadly this virus is, or how it spreads or mutates.

it would...only... be about one million

More importantly than anything else: it is profoundly unethical.

Are people really okay with abandoning millions of our most vulnerable people to death, abandoning millions more to complications from this illness, just to save some abstract notion of "the economy"?

I flatly reject that reality, and everyone should too.

Not only do the vulnerable members of our society deserve to be treated humanely, so do our nurses and other medical workers, these genuine heroes, who are subjecting themselves to this illness to reduce other people's suffering.

And yes, the economy will suffer no matter what we do, like you mention. But even if it didn't, it is still profoundly unethical. Arguably on the level of genocide.

I find there is an uncomfortable blurry line in the sand here where it is somehow OK to let the flu kill tens of thousands without us batting an eyelash, but not OK for this illness to kill a million. At the end of the day the decision is pragmatic and based on money, similar to allowing motor vehicles on public roads (to the point where they are de facto required).

There is nothing to say we were right to let the flu do that, and I would argue that we should reassess our moral compass in the face of all suffering and death as a society. This event should be a wake up call. We should invest much more resources and mindshare into alleviating suffering and stop accepting that these deaths are "inevitable".

Agreed, and I am hoping one outcome of this disaster will be that a lot more resources will be devoted to prevention/treatment of such illnesses we've come to accept as common. Flu for sure, maybe even the common cold.

This virus is currently killing people 30 times faster than the flu. ~0.01% of the population dies from the flu each year.

0.12% of the population of Italy died over the past two weeks from COVID-19, and the rate of deaths has still not peaked - despite a complete lockdown. Had there not been a lockdown, the death rate would have continued doubling every 3 days.

You're drawing a false equivalence.

> 0.12% of the population of Italy died over the past two weeks from COVID-19

I think you mixed up numbers, this looks too large by one order of magnitude. Maybe you used the numer of cases instead of deaths or something.

Sorry, I missed a zero. It's 0.012% - but over two weeks, instead of over a year. So, the 30x number is correct... But not the 0.12% one.

I understand how much bigger the mortality is for this virus, and I understand why we are reacting this way. But how do you argue that deaths from one virus are not equivalent to the other? If it's just numbers, can you specify the number that is OK to let die instead of locking down?

If the death rate were within 5x of the flu, and if the death rate did not increase dramatically when our medical system is overloaded, a hard lockdown would probably be a mistake.

It's not 5x, and it does increase dramatically, though.

Comparing this to the flu is a non-starter for participating an an intelligent discussion about this.

I agree with you! But "it's worth more people dying to save the economy" is a real view that people have, so let's explore it. And when you do, you realize it's not a real choice anyway—economies throughout history suffer massively when large portions of the population suddenly die, for relatively obvious reasons.

Broadly speaking, it's likely that people who disagree with you have seen the same arguments you have and come to a different conclusion. So, try shifting your perspective.

This recent month is like a nightmare where you realize just how bad it is, but slowly. So many people would actually throw (someone else's) grandpa under a bus for a profit; it's just that they haven't had a chance yet to do it. And now we have it.

This begs an interesting question, the paradox of tolerance on steroids: is it ethical to murder people that put profits over the lives of their neighbors?

I reject your "this offends my sense of ethics and thus it cannot be most pragmatic or humane" line of reasoning. Will you at least acknowledge there exists a relationship between a trashed economy and an increase in human suffering (not least of all suicides)?