At what point does fallout from trying to avoid covid-19 deaths cause more deaths than covid-19. We're talking domestic violence, starvation abroad (due to local hoarding, which has begun), and actual crop failure (due to a shortage of transient labor). There's also suicide, depression, etc. I'm not even saying let up on all the social distancing measures. I think social distancing measures are good, but perhaps over…
If you assume a mortality rate of 1% (which is probably in the ballpark) then you can expect 75 million deaths without intervention. So far world-wide we've had about 95,000 deaths. So doing nothing would result in about 700 times as many deaths as have occurred so far. I'd say it's probably to soon to throw in the towel.
One ironic downside of “flattening the curve” is that it makes it longer. So, barring a vaccine or effective therapeutic treatment, we will all get the virus eventually (but in an orderly fashion, which is good for the health system), and that 75 million deaths will become a reality. Note that’s also assuming a 1% death rate which may be a vast overestimate depending on asymptomatic percentages.
That said, I tend to agree with you that we should keep social distancing in place until we are able to contain new cases, or until we have a much better understanding of the virus itself. At this point there is just too much uncertainty, so it’s better to wait it out until we can establish some clarity and have a better idea of how to approach therapeutics.