There’s a whole range of costs associated with various preventative measures which could be taken in the face of any risky activity. Some of these things (like

There’s a whole range of costs associated with various preventative measures which could be taken in the face of any risky activity. Some of these things (like encouraging good hygiene) are obviously worth doing, others like canceling all public schools much less so. And it’s not just an abstract “economic” cost on the X-axis, ultimately it also comes back down to quality of life and even a cost in lives. Actual people losing their businesses, losing their houses, etc. I can’t help but think of Asimov and Three Laws. Taken to its extreme, robots interpret the law of “not allowing humans to come to harm” in a way that they ultimately enslave humanity. First, I think the nCFR is fundamentally and significantly overstating the risk to the general population because orders or magnitude more people already have it than have been tested positive. Second, I think the treatment for COVID is pretty basic. With a concerted effort to deploy temporary facilities across the US we could add sufficient ventilator beds for a quick peak in cases and save trillions of dollars in economic damages.