[Principled]

It’s not going to just disappear from the island. It’s going to eventually return and work its way thru the population.

It’s. Going. To. Happen.

I find it silly that people think they can stop this dead... they cannot... not anymore than they can stop a common cold or the flu.

[DoodleBob]

Within the context of a portfolio of assets, the risk of loss in those assets is decomposed between the Systematic and Non-Systematic (or Idiosyncratic) Risk. As a general rule, you can diversify away the Non-Systematic Risk. But the Systematic Risk is non-diversifiable. Even if you avoid the stock market, your assets are likely correlated with them so you can never avoid that Systematic Risk.

In an identical and very real manner, the same risk elements exist in society. Consider crime: you can diversify away some element of crime (e.g., greater concealed-carry, vigilance in the citizenry) but at some point, crime is gonna happen and you really can't eliminate crime. Indeed, just like with the stock market risk is unavoidable, you can never truly avoid crime. In many cases, society will try to eliminate this Systematic Risk and not only fail, but incur astronomical costs.

This is precisely what is happening in NZ: they are trying to eliminate the systematic risk of COVID19. In the process, they will incur astronomical costs (i.e., destroy the economy, increase personal stress and depression and suicide rates etc.).