Compared to what? Governments that try to trade safety for the economy will end up with neither.
Otherwise, it's arguing with physics, which seems to be in fashion and has really predictable results with no outliers or exceptions.
We've already made sure the 'before times' economy is gone forever. We're now working out what we can have, instead. That's an interesting design challenge and we're certainly not out of ideas, but 'keep the old economy' is simply not on the table.
The countries that spent the most and locked down the hardest took the smallest hit because they were able to mitigate most of the damage, which is much more expensive.
People have to stop pretending countries are people economically, the cost of locking down is something developed countries can bear, and should.
Of course, this is all a microcosm of the same problem we face with climate change. It'd be really nice if we could finally learn the lesson and start paying the price now, rather than waiting and paying far more down the line.
[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking...
1. If we believe the flatten the curve rhetoric, Sweden is behind the worst of it, and Norway, Finland, and Denmark will see slightly elevated excess deaths for a while, bringing the disparity closer.
2. Sweden may have staved off the some of the economic losses of locking down.
We still need more time to see what happens and evaluate the above.
One thing to note is that Sweden's excess death percentage is by no means a catastrophe compared to other countries. It's a data point of what the ceiling for mortality may look like if a country does nothing.
One other important thing to note, the percentage of non-covid excess deaths seems much higher for countries that lock down compared to Sweden for example [1]. It's possible that lockdowns spread covid deaths out over time instead of decreasing them, while creating non-covid excess deaths that you otherwise wouldn't have.
[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking...
"the percentage of non-covid excess deaths seems much higher for countries that lock down compared to Sweden for example"
is nonsensical.
As an example -- even among people that are wearing masks consistently, how many of them are actually following the correct protocols around mask resuse or fit?
But, locally of course elimination means you can open safely. We know that's not just theory because New Zealand did it in June. They have stadium-filling events, because they can now, and so why wouldn't they?
Yes, their border has to be essentially closed to non-citizens and there's much more surveillance testing (ie people who have no symptoms getting tested "just in case") than you'd have without a pandemic, but locally it's normal.
And so I think this actually puts a lie to the idea that you can't trade economy for safety. New Zealand shut down, tested and traced, eliminated the disease, opened back up in about three months.
Will they see economic damage? Yes. Largely because everywhere in the whole world gets damaged. Wishful thinking by Trump aside, this won't be put right by November. But are they safe? Zero cases in over two months for a population of around five million sounds pretty safe to me.
Here in New Zealand we are aware we are always one selfish idiot or one mistake away from a breakout. We quarantine people but can’t and won’t put them in jails. That’s not kind. But we have slowed border arrivals.
We are collectively reliant on the entire community, including newly returned folks, on behaving like adults. And that’s what is happening so far.
Generally people determined not to learn anything will look for excuses. New Zealand has relatively low population density (outside the cities where it had community transmission...). Or it's further away from other countries. Maybe the virus hates the cold (remember how we pretended maybe it hates the heat? Yeah, good luck with that).
Such excuses don't matter. They might help some politician keep their job, but they won't stop you dying from a disease that those politicians decided they weren't really bothered about eliminating.
I follow infectious disease eradication programmes. Elimination works. Other approaches can reduce the impact of a disease, maybe temporarily suppress it in the First World, but only elimination actually makes it go away and stay gone.
The US ought to know this. It has endemic disease of a wide variety of types otherwise not seen in the First World, because it decided not to give its citizens healthcare. So if you're poor in America and you've got some awful parasitic disease that any other developed country in the world would fix as a priority public health measure, America says "Too bad, get a job" and the disease spreads.
A vaccine is about luck. We do not understand virology well enough to firmly guarantee we can build a vaccine for all the money in the world. So maybe you get lucky in the next few months and an effective vaccine is available in 2021. But maybe you don't ever get lucky, and then what? "Social distancing" forever?
[Citation needed]
That rate also presumably assumes certain things: if the situation gets worse, that rate could no doubt jump (e.g: if the healthcare system is overwhelmed and no one can get treatment, presumably many more people will die).
Do u know that hospital are frequently overwhelmed even before this pandemic? This nothing new either.
Also with finite medical facilities that number quickly goes up to 5-10% or worse if a lot of people get sick at once.
And then there is the fact that even if you don't die, the disease can be debilitating, for some for the rest of their lives.