Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK, covid-19 is basically a "slightly worse flu". Most people are not at risk of dying and in fact most people don't even need to go to the hospital to recover. Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable. How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to s…
It is not a slightly worse flu though. There are numerous experts in record pointing to it's long incubation time, that some people are asymptomatic, that it may be airborne, the death rate... It is not normal seasonal flu and it demands a different response. Now, what that response is can be debated, but it should be more than doing nothing.
To be pedantic, it's not airborne. It's a respiratory virus. An airborne virus can linger in the air, possibly for hours or even a day. It's much much more transmissible.
The danger with SARS-cov2 is that, when going back to some of these cities where the first patients appeared, WHO researchers have found people with large viral load in their throats, and they didn't develop symptoms for over a week! So just being within 3~4 feet of them breathing could spread the disease. Sure, it's less likely than if they coughed or you shook hands, but it's still dangerous.