04-02-2020, 11:07 AM
I think the alternative being proposed is no social distancing or mandatory business shutdowns. If you assume a 1% fatality rate, and all 327 million people in the US will eventually be infected under this scenario, that's 3.3 million deaths, plus additional deaths from people with other illnesses not being able to get medical care due to an overwhelmed medical system.
If I am reading correctly, he is proposing that it would be better to just accept the 3.3M+ deaths vs the very real economic pain that 50M+ people will be feeling due to business shutdowns. I don't think this is ridiculous or immoral in principle since we make these tradeoffs every day (the economic benefits of driving vs the deaths from automobile accidents, pollution, etc). But everyone can disagree on what the right tradeoff is.
If I am reading correctly, he is proposing that it would be better to just accept the 3.3M+ deaths vs the very real economic pain that 50M+ people will be feeling due to business shutdowns. I don't think this is ridiculous or immoral in principle since we make these tradeoffs every day (the economic benefits of driving vs the deaths from automobile accidents, pollution, etc). But everyone can disagree on what the right tradeoff is.