Earlier quoted context omitted.
The virus is tanking the economy, not the lockdown. Air travel is down 97% even though they are no laws against flying places. You can lift the lockdown if you want, but if people are too afraid to board planes and go to restaurants and bars, you are not going to magically bounce back to 4% unemployment and 2% GDP growth overnight. > If you want to take people’s livelihoods away from them, you have to justify the sei…
>> Air travel is down 97% even though they are no laws against flying places Sure there is. It's called mass unemployment and closure of non-essential businesses. Why would people fly to branch offices if they're closed? >> Conversely, you could argue that if you want to take actions that risk killing hundreds of thousands of people You don't know this to be true. There is plenty of evidence showing lockdowns have li…
Sweden didn't "lock down" (as people often point out), but travel is down 90% from normal [1]:
> "The biggest myth and misconception is that life goes on as normal in Sweden," she said. "It absolutely does not."
> "We have seen Easter travel decrease by 90 percent, we have businesses going bankrupt, a record number of temporary layoffs, and a lot of unemployed people."
I agree that lockdowns seem to have limited or no impact, but not for the reason you think. Where I am, restaurants and retail shops were already in dire straits before the lockdowns came into force. I think the lock downs have limited impact because they aren't very different from the way most people would be behaving anyways, given the information they have.
1. https://www.thelocal.se/20200424/interview-isabella-lovin-co...