Thanks for posting Rebecca. I wrote this article. Anyone got questions or feedback? Also, does anyone know if people are doing systems-level modeling on this at the moment?
i've read a bunch of these articles. usually I roll my eyes and move on but I did read most of yours, it's one of the better ones. there is absolutely merit to considering the damage our response to the virus does as well, but, I have two main criticisms:
a) you lay out a lot of (reasonable) consequences to social distancing. but we can do the same thing for coronavirus still. what if we realize any woman that's caught it (even asymptomatic) produces sterile children 9 months from now? what if it turns out we can't get herd immunity because the virus mutates rapidly, and because we let this thing rip through us too quickly, we now have 12 different strains and oops you can catch multiple strains, each compounding the death rate?
because there is so much yet we still don't know about the virus, it is in our best interest as a populace to limit the spread of the disease until medical experts deems it safe. i am nearly certain they think about the thealth risks of social distancing/an economic downturn vs the health risks the virus poses to us and figure that into their recommendations and plans as well. they are professionals and experts in their field, after all.
b) you totally lost me in your conclusion. i don't think it's at all valid to compare ethnic cleansing with diseases like smallpox or heart disease, which I suspect is why most people do not think of these two different categories as the same scale of tragedy. ethnic cleansing is entirely preventable and morally reprehensible damage we inflected on ourselves, and that's the tragic part.
