I think an argument can be made the government ordered lockdowns (stay at home / shelter in place) orders were appropriate in March when we knew much less about who was most vulnerable, and did not have a well vetted treatment protocol / decision tree or any known therapeutics.
Given the tremendous public health and economic costs of lockdowns, the fear of the unknown (e.g. predicted 2% demographic wide CFR) may have justified the multi-trillion dollar cost, and an unknown number of lives lost, due to lockdowns.
Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines.
Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance. Government programs could better support at-risk populations which are self isolating by focusing on the minority of people who are acutely at-risk.
IFR Age
0.003% 0-19
0.02% 20-49
0.5% 50-69
5.4% 70-79
5.4%++ 80+
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
Given the tremendous public health and economic costs of lockdowns, the fear of the unknown (e.g. predicted 2% demographic wide CFR) may have justified the multi-trillion dollar cost, and an unknown number of lives lost, due to lockdowns.
Forced mandatory lockdowns today would be unethical and actually counter-productive. Given our vastly increased knowledge of the highly stratified risk profile of SARS-CoV-2, the public health case cannot be ethically made to forcibly confine the general population to their homes; separating them from their livelihoods, their community, their ordinary healthcare, and their mental and physical wellness routines.
Anyone can always choose to self-isolate based on their own personal risk factors and risk tolerance. Government programs could better support at-risk populations which are self isolating by focusing on the minority of people who are acutely at-risk.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...