I actually think it has nothing to do with them being old and realizing they're at risk. I would wager that, panic was at such absurd levels (and still is, and unfortunately this has become a partisan issue which is absolutely insane), that politicians did some napkin math and basically said "I'd rather be the one that shut the country down instead of the politician who was in office while millions of Americans died".

That's just speculation, of course. But if you look at someone like Trump, I don't claim to understand his thinking super well but he seems like the type of person that would be extremely opposed to a lockdown, not because of the economic impacts themselves but because the impact on the stock market. So, the fact that he accepted the recommendation to lockdown basically implies to me that he saw the level of panic and saw that, if he shutdown, very few would blame him for following advice of medical professionals, whereas if he didn't shutdown and we really did have 2 million deaths, that would absolutely be held against him. So really just some basic game theory.

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Also, I totally agree that the cure is absolutely worse than the disease. (Or more accurately, I am not sure but am highly confident, and will be following the data over the next months)