The new estimate of deaths is 60,000.
That estimate is based on the assumption that people will continue social distancing for the rest of this month. Open up earlier and the number of projected deaths goes back up.
We are trading off saving some number of lives (in the thousands now not the millions according to the “experts”) against the safety and security of 330 million people
The last recession we had was in 2009 and the US economy can't handle non-essential workers taking a 2 month vacation after 11 years of growth? If that's true then I guess our economy was weaker than it appeared. Nobody thinks the shutdown will be economically painless but if there is one thing I have faith in it is the ability of the US economy to recover, even rebound, after the restrictions are lifted. It may be painful, it may take longer than we like, but it will happen. The dead cannot be brought back to life. And as I said before opening prematurely will also cause an economic crash. We are between a rock and a hard place. Finding the solution that minimizes both loss of life and jobs is an incredibly difficult balancing act that will require input from the top experts.
Right now I have been furloughed from my job and lost a fair bit in the stock market. I am not in the high-risk population. Yet, even putting aside my concern for my elderly parents' lives, I am still better off remaining unemployed than returning to work, catching CV, and being presented with an astronomical medical bill, with a side helping of permanent lung damage. Wages are simply too low and health care costs too high to be worth the risk of returning to work until we are past the peak. Waiting until the risk is lower is the best thing for the safety and financial security of Americans without Cadillac health insurance.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-recovery-damage-lung-function-gasping-air-hong-kong-doctors-2020-3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3828991/posts
I am not talking about opening up earlier than May 1 FRLurker, but I do think we need to talk about a strategy for opening up. Some people are discussing staying closed all summer for example. You bring up a key point that I meant to address, which is that people 65 or over or with underlying health conditions should not go back to work. You, I and everyone else should make decisions that make the most sense for each one of us. It sounds like your plan is the right one for you. However, if my 30-year-old son wants to return to work in a state that meets the conditions I outlined, he should be able to. We are getting close to the point where it doesn’t make sense to have a “one size fits all” approach for all 330 million citizens.
And to help you put the current job loss into perspective, in the 2008-2009 “Great Recession” 9 million jobs were lost - spread over not quite 2 years. In the last 3 weeks alone,16 million people have filed for unemployment. AND furloughed workers are not eligible for unemployment. There are millions of those in the retail and hospitality industries. The magnitude of this is breathtaking and I think most people don’t have a clue about how bad it is.