I guess the question there is how long can an economy be shut down before a large portion of people start not being able to afford essentials. At that point the cure is worse than the disease - but I'm not sure how long that actually takes.
Speaking globally - any length of an economic shutdown is probably more deadly for poor countries than the virus itself.
Sure but every month you shut down also likely means people in your country are that much closer to running out of essentials and it's not like you can just flip a switch and bring the whole economy roaring to life again.
A very good point. Though I'm not sure how much that is actually happening at least in the U.S.
I'd make an educated guess that at least 1/100 people in the U.S. already have had covid-19. To reach herd immunity we would be looking at worst case of millions dead. However, if say 1/20 people have already had it then we are looking at a few hundred thousand dead if we stopped everything right now. Which really isn't that bad considering current estimates are at like 66,000 but given the last few days of data I expect that projection to increase further.
But perhaps the most important question at this time is how many people have had the virus that haven't yet been documented as having it.
As in all things, the choices you make to minimize the downsides of 1 thing may amplify the downsides of another thing and at this point we really don't know long term what to be more afraid of.
The one size fits all approach doesn't work it seems.
What's an option in rich western countries isn't an option in say India.
People going hungary is already happening in parts if the world. In the USA you already have people lining up for food.
First thing I did 5 weeks ago was busy out some material via Google on the great depression.
I wasn't joking when I said Americans are going to be seeing thing they haven't had to deal with since FDR.
Sent back a bit further as well both with Spanish Flu and Black Death, Antonine Plague and Justinian.
It's not always the virus itself but the break down in food supply, wars etc that kills more people.
Let's say lockdown saves 200000 American s the disruption to the world means 30 million die elsewhere.
Reality still hasn't really started to hit as it takes a while to run down food and money reserves. Here the government keep food production going along with freight as they count as essential.
Not sure what the exact unemployment figures are but 60-80% are sitting at home atm that will drop 20% next week.
500k are working out if a population of 5 million and a workforce of 2.5 million.
