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Even if opening up leads to massive deaths it can still be the correct thing to do. Here in the UK the NHS uses a system called QALYs which is approximately yea

Even if opening up leads to massive deaths it can still be the correct thing to do. Here in the UK the NHS uses a system called QALYs which is approximately years of life saved to evaluate the effectiveness of NHS interventions. The NHS generally will only introduce new interventions if they $s per a QALY is low enough. The spectrum of options for dealing with the pandemic are a trade off and if the damage to the economy is high enough then even a high death rate might not justify a strong intervention. During the NHS's normal operations there are a bunch of interventions that NHS is not pursuing because the cost is higher than the marginal cost they are willing to spend for a QALY. The NHS is killing large numbers of people right now by not pursuing these interventions but everything is a tradeoff and stopping death is not an absolute.

slv77 7y ago
The case fatality rate for 20 to 30 year olds is somewhere between 1 and 200 and 1 in 400. This population is one of the the least susceptible and the chance of death is roughly the same as doing 5 to 10 BASE jumps. The economic harm arguments assume that the economic harm of the pandemic is confined to government imposed restrictions. When going to the movies carries the same risk as the most extreme sports it is reasonable to expect that most people are going to self isolate. Of course given the lag it is possible given the growth curve that people could blindly find themselves jumping off a metaphorical cliff. At the same time I’d suggest that the significant amount of trauma the survivors would face would have significant repercussions for the economy.