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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

Not sure I agree with your numbers but I agree with your point, we are very likely quite far from herd immunity.

Which means another 18 months in lockdown if we want to stay well within the current ICU capacity until a vaccine is mass produced. Which means an economic downturn not only worse than 2008 (it will be worse already assuming we leave lockdown in a few weeks), but many times worse.

Or we can swallow this thing. It will mean more deaths. Trump says 10 times more. What I am saying is that I don’t understand how he gets there. If it is “only” two times more, then we need to have an adult conversation on how many lives are worth saving vs our society going through something akin to the great depression.

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> If it is “only” two times more, then we need to have an adult conversation on how many lives are worth saving vs our society going through something akin to the great depression.

Why is it that only two choices ever exist when this argument is presented? Choose either death by virus or death by status quo economy. It seems like a more pleasant alternative would be reshaping our economic systems to be more resilient against such a crisis which will almost certainly occur again in the future. Maybe the current ownership and distribution models and how they relate to globalism aren't compatible with something that is now simply a fact of life.

The ownership and distribution models aren't the problem. The problem is that while everyone is locked up at home, no one consumes, we don't go to restaurants, to malls, we don't do tourism. And in some case we don't produce either, construction is halted, etc. There is almost no economic activity going on.

No economic model works when everyone is effectively on house arrest.

That sounds like an argument based on faith.

Edit:

that we can not "be reshaping our economic systems to be more resilient against such a crisis" seems like arguing from faith. There is no natural law that dictates that everything has to go to haywire just because things are on a pause, or that the current systems, particularly in the US, constitutes the optimal way to handle this.

> That sounds like an argument based on faith.

Faith? That when everyone has to stay home, no significant economic activity can happen? You can call it faith...

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