[...] coronavirus will probably kill under 20,000 people in the U.K. — more than 1/2 of whom would have died by the end of the year in any case [because] they were so old and sick [...]
It isn't about the Dow. It is about the restaurants that don't have cash-on-hand having to close. It is about the people who live paycheck-to-paycheck now having to decide how to spend their last twenty dollars with the only hope of relief being a measure that is still being debated. It is the factories that are shuttered.
You could make this argument about any potentially fatal disease. Are you willing to crash the economy to save the people who die of the flu every year? Probably not, right? Presumably because fewer people die of the flu.
It's an unpleasant reality, but it's a question of degree--how many lives are worth saving the world economy for everyone else? If your answer is "zero", then why should we not apply that standard to every other disease?
I want to agree with you, but I do have a concern about this point of view that I've yet to see addressed. Perhaps you or someone else can give some insight into your thinking.
What about the deaths caused by the wrecked economy?
Even putting things in simplistic terms, the 2008 crash is credited with 10,000 suicides. Following the chain of misery into homelessness, stress-induced illnesses, criminality (which leads to loss of life in multiple categories), and so forth leads me to question whether it is actually as black and white as people say it is.
Currently, we're on track to make this economic catastrophe bigger than the 2008 crash. I don't want to imagine what the fallout is going to look like in the future, but I already know a lot of people who are out of work and scared.
Mind you, I'm saying this as someone who has family in the 70+ high-risk category. I'm not oblivious to the value of human life. I am purely speculating about whether or not we're actually doing the right thing, and thinking about the consequences as thoroughly as we should.
[...] coronavirus will probably kill under 20,000 people in the U.K. — more than 1/2 of whom would have died by the end of the year in any case [because] they were so old and sick [...]