[maxerickson]

It's likely enough that lockdowns are the better strategy for the economy. If that is the case, it's not even a sacrifice.

Severe infection and death rates are still quite high among people that are not especially old or frail; and then it sort of depends a lot of whether 'frail' is an apt description of the people that are more susceptible.

[toomuchtodo]

> It's likely enough that lockdowns are the better strategy for the economy.

I would like to see data supporting this. Because at the moment, things are pretty bleak.

[simonsaidit]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/corona...

I think everyone would like better data but one point I can follow is that scared people are bad consumers. I can’t find the exact story but I recall some research on Denver vs Philadelphia where the hard lockdown came out ahead later and the psychology of dealing with the disease contributed to this.

[maxerickson]

There's not data about the impact of either policy choice.

For example, bar and restaurant traffic would probably be down quite a lot regardless of lockdowns.

For reopening, a potential downside of doing it too early is that the spread rapidly spirals out of control again, with greater death and real panic ensuing.