I think a lot of the elderly have already faced death. I know for years my grandma has almost welcomed death. It isn't scary to her. So I think many of these people think "so what, I might die this year instead of 6 months later, I'm just going to make the most of whatever time I have left." It definitely makes sense considering the uncertainness of the future for them and rapidly declining cognitive and mental functions.

While being younger we're trying to maximize time. Even time with the elderly. Different cost functions.

The big problems with just "listen to the experts" is we've never actually been in this situation, and it depends which type of expert you talk to. Talk to an epidemiologist and you'll get an idea of how a compliant society can stop the disease. Talk to an economist and you'll hear how to minimize economic impact. Talk to a psychologist and you'll hear about mental health, compliance, fatigue. Talk to a political scientist and you might hear about China making a move on Hong Kong.

This is a complex system, and there aren't really systemic experts.

> Talk to a psychologist

I actually happened to do exactly that in late Feburary, and he pointed out that about 1% of the population die every year naturally, and WWII killed double-digits in many countries, so COVID-19 killing ~3% was certainly something civilization could survive (remember that the early fatality rate estimates were much higher than they are now, and the vast differences in fatality rate by age weren't yet known).

Dunno what he might have said to if I had been a patient. But certainly part of that job is to put things in perspective!