> But I suspect that it will turn out that general lockdown is neither good enough, nor worth the long term economic consequences.

Hang on, this is an article showing that a looser lockdown still ends up with your economy hammered anyway. This should not be surprising, analysts if the Spanish Flu pandemic showed that cities that locked down later and lighter actually suffered more economically. This is because the higher infection and death rate, and larger number of people caring for sick relatives. People ended up Locking themselves down anyway out of fear, and the epidemic dragged on for longer.

Now we know this wasn’t due to special conditions back then, it’s true now too. There simply isn’t an option to ‘choose the economy’.