Anyone talking about 9-month or 18-month-long lockdowns in the US is absolutely delusional. No matter what the economy will have to be restarted in three months maximum or we’re looking at 40%+ unemployment rate and people starving in the streets.

Because we’ve hollowed out so much, the US is not an economy that can possibly withstand a 9 month lockdown and now’s not the time we can change that.

I’m not talking about morality. I’m talking about practicality. If we want the economy to be capable of restarting at all, it has to be initiated within ~3 months or forget it. While this aggravated stoppage might be good for climate change, I’d guess it will result in 20 million extra deaths in 2-7 years if no economic restart within 3 months.