You run into problems when you begin to utilize subjective, personal measurements. What is your threshold for "crass"; is it any different from my opinion that we shouldn't put people in nursing homes? Why not spend hundreds of $billions affording the elderly with continued, participatory lives? Oh, you say there's some arbitrary age, maybe 75-80, were we diminish direct, individual support and begin warehousing them? OK, well, you have your number and I have mine.
Ok, for arguments sake, I accept your argument that it's not primarily CV deaths, but severe illness that, due to excess demand, may result in higher than usual mortality rates. Please be aware that I'm well versed in the logic - if you check my posting history, I spent a lot of time attempting to educate people on these very issues of exponential growth.
So, we get back to the essential cost-benefit analysis, which in your estimation is "crass" if it surpasses a certain, arbitrary threshold. May I ask what your opinion is about government leaders, who 60-70 years ago calculated expected casualty rates in the event of nuclear war with the USSR. Were they "crass" in addressing this fundamental, existential issue, all the while making preparations for government continuity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_continuity_of_operations
At some point, all the adults are going to have to put on their big-boy pants, and have a real, meaningful discussion about the price of freedom. Are we to compromise our core civil liberties, including private property, freedom of assembly/movement, due process, etc for an exchange of presumed safety? If we were never going to accept Soviet victory/domination at any price, then why would we accept a virtual collective gulag guarded by recently empowered bureaucrats?
I'm not necessarily dismissing the prospect of 1-5-10-15 million dead, but who/why were leaders from previous generations able to make these kinds of decisions with our continued freedoms protected for posterity in mind?
We had to destroy the village in order to save it. 67-68 ‘Nam.
VDH wrote a good article today describing how the cure can be worse than the disease. We are allowing the technocrats of Deep State to drive public policy. I remain skeptical of the data and the modeling. We are being stampeded into some very bad decisions.
IMO expanded testing in the US will reveal that the Coronavirus is not much different than the generic flu. A bit more deadly and infectious, but not warranting the extreme measures now being undertaken.
We are all “Crass”, it means we will entertain cost/benefit analysis, even if it means people die.
But my “that crass” was specifically dealing with choosing a path that would purposely lead to a shortage of treatment, when there was another path that would not. And that does not mean that doing that would actually be the wrong choice, it’s just that I don’t think the public as a whole would accept the daily stream of “my mother died sitting in a hospital bed waiting for a ventilator” stories, and they would assign blame to someone for that, even if you convinced them that the alternative was they would be begging on the streets.
It’s the same logic that doomed some health care reform, because in the end, no matter how much you think people should be responsible for their own lives, you will never convince the majority of americans to allow someone to die on the sidewalk in front of an emergency room, simply because they bought a big screen TV instead of insurance.