So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.
In 3-4 weeks, govts all over the world will have to reassess the situation. Sooner or later, restrictions must be lifted for the sake of the economy alone. Not to mention other problems in society that come from permanent lockdowns. Otherwise, there will be bankruptcies en masse and skyrocketing unemployment. I still have some hope by looking at South Korea as some sort of model, but we should be prepared for the worst. I'm afraid the numbers of infected people will start climbing again once we return the normalcy. This is probably the worst societal crisis of our lifetimes that causes an unimaginable moral dilemma. I'm afraid in a few weeks we as a society and the politicians will have to decide whether continue to go down an economic super-cliff with disastrous consequences, worse than the 2009 recession, or we try to isolate only seniors and chronically ill and try to get some mass immunity among healthy people under the age of ~60-65.
The major problem as we speak is a complete lack of immunity across the board against this new virus. And there are just 2 ways to achieve that mass immunity: Vaccine or recovered people. Since vaccine won't be available for at least 9 months (maybe 12-14 months, and the vulnerable people need to be "locked up" for that amount of time), we might actually to go with the latter. Not because we like it, but because the alternative is so horrendous.
That's what I've been saying for some days now and discussed with a number of people in private. All the lockdowns achieve is delaying the problem for a few weeks. Then we will face the same bad choice again: Keep everything shut down and basically ruin the economy, or try to shield the most vulnerable and let it run through for herd immunity. Neither is a particular good thing, but the long-term impact of an economic collapse and increased depression/mental problems could be even greater.
I think it can't be underestimated that
the part that I bolded is a very good thing. Even a few weeks is a few more ventilators, a few more abilities to test different drugs before it gets bad for everyone, a few more ways that we improvise masks, a few more opportunities to motivate out-of-work folks who give back some way or another, a few more weeks of determining policies and seeing what red tape we can cut and guessing and trying all sorts of different improvisations that buy us more lives back. I generally agree that it's "just buying time", but in this case, time is a very, very good thing to have more of.
