The IFR for covid is also heavily stratified by age. The latest best estimate from the CDC put it at 0.6% IFR for the general population, but at 0.05% for the 1

The IFR for covid is also heavily stratified by age. The latest best estimate from the CDC put it at 0.6% IFR for the general population, but at 0.05% for the 18-49 years group. I am still not completely convinced that the choice of blanket lockdowns instead of focused protection of risky groups didn't make things worse by prolonging the pandemic, a.k.a. "flattening the curve". Old people are not very mobile by nature, and had we kept the economy working, but with government assistance, we would probably be able to improve the social distancing of the elder and the obese for as much as we needed. The rest of the population could live their life as usual, with minimal consequence, and the virus would peter out when it find it difficult to find new host without immunity. Instead we lockdown indiscriminately, and opened up indiscriminately and probably sooner then the ideal, because you simply can't keep thing lockdown for the whole society for long: Your resources are going to exhaust some day.