There are a number of people with very advanced degrees asking the same question, although not quite so indelicately. Just read an opinion piece from a Stanford epidemiologist whose essential argument was that, in this case, our 'cure' for this virus (shut the economy down) may be worse than the disease itself.

Put another way: if these containment methods cause a full-blown Great Depression (which, if you read Goldman Sachs' Friday projection of Q2 US GDP falling by 25 percent, an absolutely unheard of number, is absolutely plausible) -- well, think of all the deaths caused by utter despair. Suicides, murders, domestic violence, and an increase in deaths unrelated to the virus, among those who can't afford care...all of these things, in a for-real Depression, may well result in far, far more deaths than even the most dire predictions for this coronavirus.

Of course, the psychological cost of seeing potentially 3.6 million Americans die (1 pct of our population, assuming a 50 pct infection rate and a 2 pct death rate among that 50 -- a rate which tracks to South Korea's actual results) -- well, that would be horrible. And no policymaker, ever, could come out and basically say 'We're gonna have to let Grandma fight this on her own."

So yeah. We're kinda screwed either way.

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