It's not about how many are dying today. That's what people just can't seem to wrap their head around. The reason other countries, and eventually the USA, are willing to go so far to stop this virus, is that the result of doing nothing would be too horrible. You can't wait until you get to 180 deaths a day. If you wait that long it will be too late. Hospitals will become overwhelmed, widespread quarantines will be attempted and fail, and the disease will get completely out of control. At that point, the current economic impact will look trivial. 180 deaths per day, or even double that, might be manageable as a peak, but you can't just wait for it. If you think other countries have virtually shut down to reduce the spread without considering the impact to their economies, you are mistaken.
You are correct that the high risk folks will have to bear much of the burden. They will bear it both isolated in their homes and isolated in in ICU rooms. Obviously, they don't want to be infected and they will do what they can to avoid it. But we can't just sit back and say "it's just old people" and let the virus run through unchecked.
That’s exactly what Hong Kong did vs. Italy... they were proactive, before they even had 100 cases they were closing borders, schools,etc. as a result, they have had a very mild peak, with economy and healthcare intact whereas Italy, well, you know...
Isolated in our homes, fine. But no coercion to mandatory “q-camps”
No I really can wrap my head around it. I understand being proactive.
I am no epidemiologist and perhaps they know better! But the stuff being advocated by many here is in my opinion way over blown. Harmful.
Anyway I don’t think any epidemiologists are saying we should forcibly quarantine healthy people, shut all schools and businesses, lose our jobs, hide in the hills, etc. I oppose this sort of talk.
As for saying “it’s just old people” I think that is being overreacted too as well. The limited info we have is pretty clear that younger people are at far less risk of death. That doesn’t mean we are HAPPY about it. It just means that perhaps elderly should be avoiding conventions or cruises and the younger can probably still go to work and school.