I’m not quite sure what the alternative would be. Allow a huge portion of the population to be thrust into poverty through no fault of their own? Pretend the virus doesn’t exist and go about business as normal as millions of people die?
I know there are a lot of people advocating for the latter scenario–something along the lines of “open the economy and let God sort 'em out.” But it seems to me that even that would lead to economic catastrophe too, just with more deaths.
We can’t exactly pretend it doesn’t exist. Even with the quarantine in place, a friend of mine has already lost six of her co-workers. Another friend lost both of his in-laws. My parents lost several friends to this virus as well. People will notice that sort of thing happening, and they will reduce the amount they go out as a result, and then economic activity will contract anyways.
If we had taken the virus seriously from the beginning, this outcome could have been avoided, and we probably could have saved lives and the economy. But given that we are where we are, trying to buffer the effects that this virus will have on people’s economic lives seems like the best choice we have.
