This is not the fault of the citizens. This is the fault of government who did not provide enough economic assistance, creating the desperation you're witnessing. This was unnecessary; other governments provided the support their citizens needed (the UK, for example).

Either pay people a decent wage to stay home to flatten the curve, or accept the death rate resulting from people who need to eat and have shelter having to go to their jobs.

This so much. The narrative seems to pitch an either/or situation, why not both or some of both

I am against ending the lockdown early as well and disagree in no uncertain terms with those who are trying to minimize the pandemic. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to start wondering whether the economic and political damage may ultimately outweigh the lives saved. If anyone thinks populism spawning extremists and getting them into public office was bad now, imagine the tsunami of public anger and populism that will occur caused by immense (even, dare I say it, pandemic) unemployment and poverty, which is where we're headed full steam. When things get tough, people shift into a "me first" mentality that is incompatible with the philosophies of many HNers.

The economic damage at least was always going to happen. It's a direct consequence of the pandemic itself (and people's natural fear-based reactions to isolate themselves to reduce their risk).

It's not like you can relax social distancing and have the economy do well, especially not when the death toll really starts ramping up and people fear for their lives every time they leave home. There isn't any choice available in which there isn't a bad recession.

One piece of anecdotal evidence:

I live in NYC but currently reside in rural upstate NY. We have very few cases up here and it's impossible to NOT socially distance because that the way of life up here.

As of last week, Cuomo is applying the same rules in NYC to all of NY state, which is ridiculous. My family friend has a furniture factory up here that employs 220 people with a backlog of $2M+ pieces worth of furniture. All of his employees were socially distancing before and everyone had an N95 because of what they were building. Cuomo shut down the state and this guys business is about to go under (competition is legally opening up in Ohio and other states) because he's weekly payroll is 125 and at some point he doesn't want to risk $500-1MM of his own money out of pocket to weather the storm. That is 220 jobs that do not need to disappear.

The same rules that apply to NYC should apply to other areas. Some of these problems were are seeing are policy problems.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other on your friend's situation. It definitely sucks, and you may well be right that it's unduly harmful to their situation. But don't underestimate this disease. Even upstate New York isn't immune, take a look at this interactive map[1]. Almost all counties in upstate New York are north of 50 confirmed cases per 100,000 people, and all of those are neighboring counties with hundreds of confirmed cases. Given our rate of testing is abysmal, it's very likely there are several times that many actual cases in each county. Drastic action is absolutely needed, even in your county.

This is an awkward and difficult situation. If we underreact, we will have hundreds of thousands or millions more deaths (not joblessness, actual dead people) than we could have if we reacted appropriately. I think that's worse than the alternative of a massive recession, but I definitely sympathize with people who are most affected, like your friend and his employees. It's tough; there's no clear right answer; mistakes will be made. We just need to do the best with the information we have, and trust the experts to do the same. I'm sorry :(

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

My impression from living up here for a month or so is that most people are taking it seriously, though some are not. I do not think people are going to stay inside as soon as the spring weather arrives.

I do agree mistakes will be made, but i also think there there are leaders on both sides of the political aisle that should resign at this point for errors they have made.

*The same rules that apply to NYC SHOULDN'T apply to other areas.

It's not clear how bad things would actually be without the lockdown. There is a continuum, and I'm sure there is a much happier medium than what we currently have.

My question then is what half-measures would be preferred here that would've still flattened the curve? When you're in the middle of a pandemic, I think it makes sense to err on the side of doing too much to stem the tide versus burning time and energy trying to feather the dial to get that needle perfectly balanced between physical and economic health. Perhaps more bluntly put, I'd rather people be alive and on unemployment than gainfully employed and dead. (And yes, there's a whole other discussion to be had about the efficiency or lack therof of getting money out to people. We could and should do a lot better.)

Economic downturn can kill people, too. It is not as simple as dead people on one side and no dead people on the other.

Right, but one kills directly and in much larger numbers. I think it's clear which is the bigger mortal threat.

I disagree the situation is clear.

To take the logical extreme, if we were to avoid all possible immediate threat to life, no one should leave the house, let alone drive to work. Obviously, our society would immediately collapse, and many millions would die. So we have to balance possible immediate threats against likely longer term consequences. Something we do not seem to be doing very well in the case of covid-19.

> I disagree the situation is clear

I'm confused, do you actually think the mortality rate of a down economy will be anywhere near that of a pandemic? Let me know if I'm misinterpreting you here but it sure seems like this is what you're arguing.

> lostapathy: If said "down economy" led to a long-term depression or a year or two of lost crops due to any number of possible disruptions, we could easily see more death (both directly and due to social unrest, suicide, etc).

History doesn't bear this out. The Great Depression resulted in an uptick in suicide, yes, but a decline in practically every other cause of mortality.

https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290.full

> yters: Yes, I do think we could have a more reasonable approach that will result in less aggregate deaths than our current approach.

You could look at any societal attempt to deal with a large scale threat and say "well that could've been done better", but as I said in my other comment, perfection takes time, and, with time of the essence, I think we were smart to move forward with an imperfect but obviously impactful solution rather than burn time and lives trying to find some mythical perfect balance.

Yes, I do think we could have a more reasonable approach that will result in less aggregate deaths than our current approach.

If said "down economy" led to a long-term depression or a year or two of lost crops due to any number of possible disruptions, we could easily see more death (both directly and due to social unrest, suicide, etc).