[spookthesunset]

People will start dropping dead from social unrest, addiction, substance abuse, suicide, etc. this “lockdown” isn’t free. It has massive health impacts that could easily outweight any lives saved by the lockdown.

People need to put on their critical thinking caps around here. What is the end game of this lockdown? What data is it based on? How will we know when to end it—given all factors, which include vastly more than slowing the spread of the virus.

Also stop downvoting people asking questions. Asking questions and thinking critically and rationally is what this forum is supposed to be about.

[traitsnspecs]

Yup, my gut feeling is that follow on effects from rampant unemployment and financial insecurity will have a much larger effect (via stress-induced heart attacks, suicide, etc.) than the 3.4% mortality rate among reported cases (WHO numbers, not all infected, maybe not even most infected.)

I would love to see an actual statistical comparison. spookthesunset is making an excellent point. Unless we know that deaths from the virus are greater than the deaths caused by the second-and-third-order effects of panicking, you can't say for sure that the lockdown is the best thing to do right now.

[coldtea]

>Unless we know that deaths from the virus are greater than the deaths caused by the second-and-third-order effects of panicking

Do you believe that when the death toll raises from non-panicking and not imposing a lockdown (not to mention the total saturation of the healthcare system), that wont create even more panic and self-lockdown -- and have their own second and third order effects?

[traitsnspecs]

Yes, and this is why - the population of investors is honestly not all that panicky. If people start dying, investors will watch the death rate, and companies' share prices will reflect some instability but it will be somewhat in line with the actual economic impact, which traders are smart enough to price it at the small level it would actually be given the mortality rate.

By imposing lockdown, we have created a real economic slowdown, that traders are smart enough to deem catastrophic (because a month or restauranteurs going without wages is actually catastrophic and represents a much larger loss of future incomes that the still-small-but-blown-up-in-the-media death rate from the unchecked coronavirus.) Unlike the non-lockdown option, there is no optimistic case. You can't say, "earnings are slow, but people will be sorry if they panic sell because when the media frenzy dies down things will settle." You have to say, "earnings are slow, and might not actually pick up again because the lockdown lost a bunch of people their job."

[empath75]

The end game of the lockdown is the disease burning out over the course of 9 months instead of 1 month, giving more time to find a treatment or vaccine and fewer people dying untreated because hospitals are full.

The alternative is to let 2 million Americans die this summer.