[CriticalCathed]

>We don't halt the world for "bad colds".

No we typically don't. But in this case we may have. The science is beginning to point to the fact that this virus is not particularly lethal, but it is extremely contagious with an R0 of at least 2. That's where the danger lies -- if this was the plague and more than half of people who got it died our response should be what China did or perhaps significantly stronger than that. But there may be better options that don't doom an entire generation to an economic depression and its manifold consequences (which in and of themselves, in the long run, could kill more people than this disease ever will.) in the case where the disease itself is not particularly lethal.

The lockdown stuff that has economic consequences is speculated to need to last as long as 18 months! Even two months will cause untold damage that will have knock on effects for years, perhaps decades. We didn't even recover from 2007 before this latest downturn and the effects have rippled through our society touching everything, including suicides.

[throwaway4787]

I think the pandemic is really pulling the mask off in that it neatly sorts out the kind of people who worry about vulnerable people, the elderly and not overwhelming the healthcare system so that more could live on one hand, and the kind of people who worry first and foremost about "the economy", and whatever imaginary deaths a recession could entail based on some abstract sleight-of-hand reasoning.

[CriticalCathed]

You're putting words into my mouth. And I really don't appreciate it. In fact, I think that our focus should be directly on the at risk population. I think we should do more to protect them and provide a whole host of interventions and services. I think we can do that without causing a depression; Remember, the effects of economic downturns affect every single aspect of peoples lives including their health. If we do this wrong even more people may die or have significant, long lasting, hardship because of an ill-considered and potentially unnecessary intervention.

Read through my profile to find what I've said to this end, I don't feel like giving you any more of my time after you've not given me the benefit of the doubt and basically called me inhumane.

[temac]

We don't usually call a disease that can easily evolve to pneumonie "a cold". And your focus on the supposedly low lethality is misplaced. Way more people need a stay in an hospital (sometimes short). This disease has the power to double (or even worse) the mortality rate of industrialized country during months or even years.

That some people are even asymptomatic is not even a particularly good news IMO. It will just spread more because of that...

[jeltz]

I am personally 100% on board with halting the economy to fight COVID-19, but your are factually incorrect. The influenza is often called "a cold" and it does cause pneumonia. I have gotten pneumonia most likely from it and so have several people I know.

[CriticalCathed]

>We don't usually call a disease that can easily evolve to pneumonie "a cold".

That's not true. Just not true. Colds and influenza regularly proceed to pnemonia or long lasting secondary lower respiratory infections, especially in the elderly but also in the young and healthy.

>Way more people need a stay in an hospital (sometimes short).

No that isn't clear at all. The current understanding is that because the infectivity is so high the proportion of cases that are serious come in many times faster than other respiratory viruses, and on TOP of other respiratory illnesses.

>This disease as the power to double (or even worse) the mortality rate of industrialized country during months or even years.

That's potentially true, but it isn't necessarily true. The excess mortality of this disease -- it is plausible and it can be sensibly argued, may not be that high. That is because it is killing, in general, those who are already ill. In Italy 88% of those who have died had one or more serious commodities such as heart disease, and that is on top of the fact that the median age of death is currently 81 (median case age 63.) An unknown but potentially high proportion of these deaths may have happened in the next two years anyway. So at the end of this the excess mortality rates may not be anywhere close to double amortized over two years, and consequently in two years we might see a drop in general mortality rates as a result (if this illness does end up infecting >50% of the population as some leaders have seen fit to say.

>That some people are even asymptomatic is not even a particularly good news IMO. It will just spread more because of that...

It is good news, definitely. Because it means that we don't need to worry about most people. We need to worry about those at high risk. We may be able to get through this by focusing on isolating, social distancing, and providing at home resource for those at significant risk. Such a strategy, if properly done, could even be used to allow the illness to travel through the otherwise not vulnerable population creating herd immunity which will allow those at risk to come out of quarantine earlier.