@sanstitre_has_left_the_building’s lamentation earlier reminded me of this comment I made (perhaps naively) in another thread (in what feels like another lifetime).
There is some truth to this sentiment though. All of us are human and are going to feel some amount of anxiety and disappointment during this time. Those with mental health issues are especially impacted. No doubt depression, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, alcoholism, spousal abuse, and other social and mental health related impacts are on the rise. Deaths from these causes probably won’t rival those from the virus, but the impacts are nonetheless real.
Not to mention that all of us are living watered down lives right now. Some of us are finding the silver lining by spending more time with our immediate family (honestly, this period will one day be the source of some of my most cherished memories - in retrospect!), but all of us are missing out on birthdays, church gatherings, work parties, dating, weddings, funerals, graduations … not to mention vacations. We are all essentially missing out on this period in our lives. Will it be 3 months? Or a year? Will we subtract 1 year off 8 billion lives in exchange for 3 years on 1 million people’s lives? (Forgive the utilitarian rhetorical question - there are no good answers so don’t bother trying to respond.)
We have to balance the toll the lockown is taking with the toll the pandemic is taking. Obviously, fully opening the economy will not make this better - the more death and infection we have, the higher the toll on perceived safety, which will hurt the economy just as much as a lockdown. But we have to think about what measures can reasonably be relaxed so we can live close to a normal life as possible without swinging the pendulum too far the other way.