[VectorLock]

The economic impact isn't coming from people dying, its from the measures being used to prevent people from dying. It seems like the economy operates on such a knife edge a little push has serious repercussions. We shut down restaurants because they're a prime locus for spreading. Now those employees are out of a job. The restaurant closes or can't pay its rent, now the owner of the building has knock-on effects.

[davrosthedalek]

Even without mandated lockdown, the effect is the same. If I have a 1% chance of dying/long term effects, and I can reduce it if I don't go to restaurants, I won't go to restaurants.

[bronco21016]

Agreed. Even with significantly reduced capacity it doesn’t seem restaurants around here are turning people away.

Demand has dropped off. Whether there are government restrictions or not, people have overwhelmingly decided it’s not worth the risk.

[anoncake]

For the vast majority of people, that chance is significantly lower.

[davrosthedalek]

For dying, yes, for long term effects, it's not so clear. And I would also count "I infected my parents and they died" as long term effects.

[anoncake]

There is no evidence for long-term effects, only anecdotes.

[davrosthedalek]

I'm sure many New Yorkers whose parents died will disagree.

[anoncake]

They don't use your private definition of "long-term damage".

[nemothekid]

>The economic impact isn't coming from people dying, its from the measures being used to prevent people from dying

I would say the economic impact is from the fact there is a pandemic. Even Sweden, which tried to avoid lockdowns, still saw an economic impact because people will avoid going out during a pandemic.

The fact that businesses are forced to close, or in the other case, that people would have been forced to work during a pandemic for fear of being homeless is a public policy failure.