If it turns out to be only 1%, then shutting down the economy is probably a mistake. But if it's more like 10%, then without quarantine we would get an economic collapse anyway, plus a much higher death toll.
This virus is not the black death or the start of a zombie apocalypse. To a small percentage of people, getting this will be a really bad day and that percentage is higher than it is for viruses that similarly don't cause major health issues to most, but dramatically impact others.
Having said that, the aforementioned small percentage IS enough to overwhelm the existing health care system and that alone would be enough to cause many, many of the more severely effected to die when they otherwise mightn't with proper care.
So, having said all that I do, very wearily, agree largely with the lock-down measures in place. But I also think we're in a grey area between taking appropriate measures and overreacting.
I think the article gets to another real issue. Many of our esteemed political leaders are selling this more like the black death/zombie apocalypse. Granted, most people I meet aren't so good with "nuance"; but overselling government responses to the virus to get compliance will create another, perhaps even worse, set of issues. Is the real impact of illnesses necessarily jeopardizing our supply chains? No. But the messaging is telling everybody that we're on the brink of societal collapse. So everyone is hoarding and living in fear that if they get it, they're all but dead. We may well be shutting down important businesses that are important, if not essential, and we're causing greater threats because of these artificial disruptions.
I'm also worried longer term about what gets classed as this kind of emergency latter... for any number of civil liberties reasons. But I don't think the time is now to go call for a mass-protest on the steps of city hall either; though I expect that, due to this event, that day is closer than it was before the outbreak.
I don't know about you, but avoiding 70m fatalities and over 600M hospitalizations is the optimal choice. Pursuing this choice would be the greatest human calamity, surpassing the destruction of WW2 in terms of lives.
Actually, we're looking at a bigger number in that case, because people without the disease but still in need of a hospital/ICU.bed are going to die who otherwise would have survived.
A reasonable proxy for that I suggest is the ICU rate from Diamond Princess -- assume all ICU-severity cases die, and all normal hospitalization cases survive, under a tent in the hospital parking lot. About 4x DP fatality rate.