Likewise, having the millions of people who don't die but end up in the hospital for weeks, get permanently disabled, cognitive damage, etc etc. I think people are over-indexing on fatalities which greatly underestimates the scope here.

I agree completely. Just the way the market is going proves that this society is built on a foundation of pure instant gratification to such a level that they can't even understand the realities of a pandemic. We're FUCKED at this point, and the people who should know what to do are drinking the fucking koolaid. I'm just done with anti-intellectualism altogether.

There's also the greater point in that we have no clue how long immunity is conferred for once someone has caught the virus. There seems to be some indications that people that were asymptomatic or had an otherwise mild response might have shorter term immunity, which means we might revisit this pandemic in a matter of months if we were to simply give up.

It's possible this is something we live with for the next few years or maybe the rest of our lives with hotspots cropping up in various places every couple years or months. In Asia, masks and temperature checks are pretty much a day-to-day thing, I wouldn't be surprised to see this in the western world too.

> I think people are over-indexing on fatalities

I totally agree. The death rate is about all I hear about but it's only one part of the risk. For every death there are many people who experience terrible health complications, many of which are long lasting and maybe even permanent.

Ok agreed. But what are the actual numbers here? I keep hearing "many people", but not one has given me a % as is available for the death rate.

Only in the context of "for the economy" (moral and humanitarian perspective not withstanding) this sounds like the parable of the broken window. ~95% of death is age 60+? This group largely consumes without producing. Parts of the economy that would be hit the hardest by this would include the health care industry not getting 10 more years of spending from them?

I'm not sure calculations of economic spending is the best way to make the argument "we need to protect the most vulnerable, at the expense of the least," precisely because the least vulnerable are the ones producing most of the economic output, and that output is what is being curtailed to protect those not working. Almost any argument for shutdown would be better than trying to quantify the economic cost/gain of losing a double digit percentage of the elderly, because at the end of the day, I don't think that calculation would go the way the people making the economic argument think it will.

Racking up death? The cdc latest estimatate the ifr to be only 0.65%.

Of 328 million people if 70% became infected, with a .65% fatality rate, we’d have around 1.3 million dead. The typical leading cause of death (heart disease) kills like 600k a year. Seems like racking up the dead to me. And it would probably be higher if we just pretended like things were normal and let hospitals get overwhelmed. That fatality rate is with a huge reaction by the country.

It appears that you don't understand exponential growth. What just began in the USA is an all-but-reversible process now. This isn't just about death count, it's about a complete disablement of any sort of economy or infrastructure. We're basically fucked now.

Re-read your comment in like, a few months. I'd prefer not being prescient here.

0.65% of California is still 260,000 people, even if we assume that only 50% of the population will contract it (a very conservative estimate) it is still a over a 100,000 needless deaths. So far California has reported just over 7000 deaths.

> only 0.65%

...

In the context of "brutal for the economy", 0.65% deaths pales in comparison to 20% unemployment.

Unfortunately we don't have a choice between unemployment being 20% vs 3%. The choice is between the current unemployment and whatever the rate would be if the govt issued no lock-downs and let the virus run rampant. I don't know what the unemployment rate would be in a world with overflowing hospitals and many thousands of deaths per day, but I bet it would be a heck of a lot closer to 20% than 3%.

Hospital are frequently overwhelmed already even without this "pandemic". Many thousand deaths per day are normal situation even before this.

That's the point buddy. They will now be irrecoverably overwhelmed. Every portion of the infrastructure is going to be overwhelmed.

My point is the hospital are no more overwhelmed then what has frequently happen in the past. We don't need lockdown back then, why we do lockdown now ?

I mean, even with all restrictions lifted a significant enough percentage of people would engage in behavior to avoid the disease that would have a real impact on the economy.

We aren’t talking about 3.5% unemployment vs 20% unemployment. We’re talking a deep recession in both cases. One with a deeper recession and less death, and a less deep recession but more death. Good luck trying to quantify that. I’m just gonna keep working from home, and avoiding bars/restaurants/shopping until it passes.

We're choosing to not deal with unemployment. Which is to say, we could solve a lot of the issues associated with it very easily but prefer bailing out the stock market over the poor and middle class.

Unemployment will be an issue even if we open up because bars, restaurants etc will go under regardless the moment they have a confirmed coronavirus case. Then they have to shut down, sanitize the place etc which is devastating for small businesses.

> Then they have to shut down, sanitize the place etc which is devastating for small businesses.

Its unnecessary to do all of these. When someone in the workplace get sick, ask them to take sick leave to recuperate, then back to work when they recover, just how it has been done before this "pandemic". No need to shutdown, No need excessive sanitization. Most people who contract the virus don't get sick.

No, it is absolutely necessary and your comment on 'most people don't get sick' is objectively wrong. It's estimated that around 40% of people are asymptomatic, others do get varying degrees of sick after catching the coronavirus. Because it's highly contagious, it can very rapidly spread through an entire company and then we're back to where I just said. Where they have to shut down, sanitize the place and prevent people/customers from getting sick.

Though given your posting history you seem to have a running theme going on of massively downplaying the virus and the fact that you put 'pandemic' in scare quotes indicates that you're probably just an asshole.

>It's estimated that around 40% of people are asymptomatic, others do get varying degrees of sick after catching the coronavirus

Alright using your number the asymptomatic + mild symptom will make up the majority of the cases. Nothing to be worry about.

>Because it's highly contagious, it can very rapidly spread through an entire company and then we're back to where I just said

So what if it spread when the majority of the people will be fine.

>Where they have to shut down, sanitize the place and prevent people/customers from getting sick.

It is unnecessary to do so. Its excessive.

>Though given your posting history you seem to have a running theme going on of massively downplaying the virus and the fact that you put 'pandemic' in scare quotes indicates that you're probably just an asshole.

Because the reality is the virus is not as scary as the media reported. The lockdown is way more destructive than the virus itself.

Its your choice if you want to live in fear and paranoia.

Poverty—though deadly—does not come close to the same mortality rate as COVID-19. Also we know how to deal with 20% unemployment (whether we are willing is another issue).

So frankly you are wrong. 20% unemployment is the thing that pales in comparison

> Also we know how to deal with 20% unemployment

We absolutely do not. Many states have been backloged with unemployment requests[0]. Tens of thousands of people are going back to work now, but were unable to get unemployment for 3~4 months. I've read about people spending 5~8 hours on the phone, told to fill out some other forms, and still get a letter saying they're entitled to $0, while others get more money than they got while full-time employed. Those that are going back to work, may never have the time to fight with the state to get the money they were entitled to.

At least in America, we've completely and totally failed at dealing with unemployment.

[0]: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/05/04/gov-pritzker-says-th...

Well, the knowledge exists. 20% unemployment was seen widely internationally after the 2008 financial collapse. The results were devastating, don’t get me wrong, but some of the effected areas were able to recover fairly quickly. So we do know how to deal with 20% unemployment, but—sadly—we might not be willing to for some reason.