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That is true. Although, they (we?) won't all die at once. 100s of people are dying now, mostly very elderly. If the panic wasn't ramped up, people would have ba
by sershe 7y ago
That is true. Although, they (we?) won't all die at once. 100s of people are dying now, mostly very elderly. If the panic wasn't ramped up, people would have barely noticed this against the background rate of deaths from other diseases. They would have started noticing when it got to around Italian levels, and very ineffectual lockdown/self-quarantine would start that wouldn't affect the economy nearly as much as it has been currently affected in countries with barely any deaths. Then there'd be a month or so of panic as ~everyone gets it and lots of people die. Then it's back to normal.
Alternatively, as a base case we are going to have years of a recession. Evictions, foreclosures, wiped out retirements, divorces, ruined childhoods and early careers messing up millions of lives for decades, suicides, preventable deaths in the developing world where losing your livelihood is a much bigger deal, potential flare-up of wars as young men there don't have jobs, etc.
- throwanem 7y ago"Then it's back to normal" remains an utterly risible claim for what happens after two or three million Americans die in the span of a month.
- sershe 7y agoWhy? What, exactly, do you predict is going to happen economically once the spike would have passed esp. given the age distribution of the deaths? I honestly tried to think about it and the only tangential thing I could definitely predict is LOTS of people from the city councils all the way to the white house not being re-elected. Which, obviously, made me even more cynical.