Here's an article that suggests things I can't endorse.
I'm all in favor of flattening the curve. I'm doing my part to promote–and to model–early voluntary measures to that end.
But the costs at multiple levels are already very high. And we are going to have to come to grips with the fact that certain proposals now on the table -- such as that we maintain, perhaps with little breaks, something like the present level of social distancing for 18 months–would come with a catastrophic price tag in human lives.
From farming to food distribution and logistics to infrastructure and public works to ventilator manufacture, large-scale, long-term slowdowns are going to create grave problems. Some people who would otherwise have lived out normal lives are going to die, not from COVID-19 itself, but from the domino effects from these other issues.
I have doubts whether we can maintain even the current level of closure for three months, both because of the dire economic costs and because people simply won't abide by it. If we do it for that long, assuming that the virus has been brought under control, we will find when we go back to our normal levels of social contact that many businesses are shuttered permanently. A vast number of people will be out of work. Some simple things to which many of us have been accustomed will be unavailable or prohibitively expensive, and maybe not just for the short term. Extrapolating those consequences to 18 months simply boggles the mind.
I don't have a solution to sell you. There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs and compromises. But some trade-offs are worse than others. It is going to take both knowledge and wisdom for us to figure out a long-term strategy.
If this becomes a long term problem we are going to have to live with it. We already are with many other health threats that kill more people than this virus has or is projected to. Just look at heart disease and cancer or air pollution.
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