Isn't covid-19 the #1 cause of death in NYC right now? And not, like, starvation?
Saying the cure is worse than the disease shows a frightening lack of both empathy and objective reasoning. I don't want to construct a strawman, but I worry that what "reopen" people are really saying is "I don't care if X% of the US population dies - as long as I'm not one of them - if it means I can try to go back to normal."
And try is the key word there. I would argue the main thing keeping people at home is not stay-at-home orders, but fear. Correctly-calibrated, sensible fear of getting a disease that has better odds of killing you than lots of other sources of risk in modern life.
Saying the cure is worse than the disease shows a frightening lack of both empathy and objective reasoning. I don't want to construct a strawman, but I worry that what "reopen" people are really saying is "I don't care if X% of the US population dies - as long as I'm not one of them - if it means I can try to go back to normal."
And try is the key word there. I would argue the main thing keeping people at home is not stay-at-home orders, but fear. Correctly-calibrated, sensible fear of getting a disease that has better odds of killing you than lots of other sources of risk in modern life.