I can't speak for the greater New York area, but limiting to NYC, there are about 8.3 million inhabitants. As of today, about 12k Covid19 deaths. If it's true t

I can't speak for the greater New York area, but limiting to NYC, there are about 8.3 million inhabitants. As of today, about 12k Covid19 deaths. If it's true that about 21% of the population has been infected so far [1], that's 1.75 million, so a fatality rate of 0.7%. Let's say herd immunity for the very dense NYC is reached at 80%. That's an additional 4.9 million new yorkers who will get the virus. At the current fatality rate of 0.7% that's 34.3k additional deaths. If we extend for many months the lockdown, maybe we bring the fatality rate to 0.5% due to protocol improvements. That's a 24.5k dead, or about 9k saved. We are talking about 9000 people saved, not 160000. But keep in mind, the 9000 people saved are just the Covid19 victims. There will be additional deaths due to months and months of missed "elective" healthcare. People with diabetes, hypertension, etc, etc, who are not managing their condition properly because if you're not Covid19, nobody cares about you anymore. Who is counting these invisible victims? After you put them in, it's not clear on a net basis how many people you save, but it's probably in the low single digit thousands, if there. Now, notice that I did not mention so far anything about unemployment, bankruptcies, tenant evictions, foreclosures, or any of the other myriad of economic illnesses. I kept the discussion strictly about healthcare, and who dies who lives. I'm in favor of keeping the lockdown for a bit longer, but keeping it for many months doesn't make too much sense, even if you completely disregard the economic consequences. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22958352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22958352