This is the trouble. It's not a matter of "putting the economy before lives", the economy is what sustains those lives. Even for those who insist that any form of economic activity is some kind of right-wing abomination, the social costs of an extended shutdown are likely to be huge.
The elderly, already vulnerable to isolation, are likely to become far more isolated. It's not going to help if they can't even mingle with the other elderly people in the retirement homes.
Workers who are laid off and end up trying to find work in an utterly destroyed economy where many businesses have permanently closed will be dealing with a growing sense of hopelessness, even assuming they don't end up homeless because they can't pay rent.
The education of a generation of children is disrupted, impacting the lower income children the most as they are least likely to have the facilities at home to get online and stay in at least some form of contact with their peers or complete school projects from home.
The consequences of a rise in divorce and domestic abuse could be devasting for untold numbers of people. The increased stress of people being out of work, struggling financially etc are likely to cause either or both of these.
It's far from impossible that we'll see a huge spike in suicides. People who have spent years or decades growing a business only to have it all ripped away from them by government diktat and as a result end up losing their homes and maybe their families as well, and who conclude they have nothing left to live for, seem particularly at risk of suicide.
Personally I find it more concerning that the chance of some kind of civil insurrection increases so substantially. The same people who figure they have nothing to live for may also decide they have nothing to lose and riot. At least they could look forward to being fed in prison.
It really is bizarre that so many people find it acceptable for the government to decide, with no rhyme nor reason, who is allowed to earn a living and who is not and which rights previously considered sancrosanct can be revoked at a couple of hours notice. Short of huge scale confiscation of private property it's hard to see how governments are going to get out of this situation - when so many businesses are shut down the loss of tax revenue will be gigantic, at the same time that unemployment claims go through the roof. It's hard to imagine governments shutting down projects to save revenue so their only options are to tax or borrow. Taxation can only go so far when so many people will end up with nothing, and borrowing will be difficult without the tax revenue to service the borrowing.
nypost.com
