A useful question I've found is "So which of your friends and family are you prepared to sacrifice so we can all get back to normal?" Statistically speaking, with a rapid uncontrolled pandemic, everyone is gonna know at least several people who end up dying.

That’s unfair unless you also answer which of your friends you’re willing to sacrifice to unemployment, poverty, homelessness, depression, etc. so we can go on lockdown for longer.

I hate this framing that makes it seem like it’s a choice between caring about people and caring about money. When the economy crashes it causes real misery for real people.

None of my friends are family are being sacrificed to any of those things. Most are able to work from home or are classified as essential workers and are still working for that reason (e.g. I know some nurses and police officers), and the ones who were in the service sector are furloughed and are getting unemployment. None of this holds a candle to them dying.

What do you think is the overall right length of time for the lockdown? Do you think we should already be getting back to work now?

So basically you think there won’t be too much contagion and people who have jobs or are getting unemployment benefits now will still be in that state after a few months? And that the unemployment system can handle an almost overnight order of magnitude increase in demand? And that essential services like farms, shipping and grocery stores will survive long term despite the major supply chain disruption? That seems crazy optimistic to me but I guess I can’t convince you.

Please read up on the Great Depression. Economic downturns can be pretty bad. If they could have solved it by just giving everyone unemployment, they would have.

Edit:

> What do you think is the overall right length of time for the lockdown?

I don’t know dude, I’m not an economist. I just think the economic effects should be properly taken into account and weighed against the health effects. Yes, there is some amount of economic damage that it’s worth some number of people dying to avoid. That seems obvious to me, but people act like you’re a Nazi if you point it out.

The economic consequences of the shutdown will not be remotely as harmful as the deaths from not shutting down.

How do you know?