Over-react and keep deaths under 100k or Under-react and kill Millions.
I believe the correct option was chosen.
w-thumbs!^
Have heard a lot of "better safe than sorry" over the last couple months. A lot of "I'd rather overreact than underreact".
Those folks don't layer the cost of massive overreaction into their analysis. You can justify basically any action if you completely ignore one side of the risk/reward equation. "Even one is too many"...right? But at what cost? I would rather risk slightly underreacting versus insanely overreacting.
On one hand you have what, 20k, 30k more deaths, largely older folks with comorbidity that had a few years left anyway? Not that I want those people to die, but that's worst case.
On the other hand you have economic depression the likes of which we haven't seen in almost 100 years if ever. Long-ranging quality of life impact to millions upon millions of people.
I'm not saying which is right, everyone can decide for themselves, but the two have to be weighed against each other. You can't look at either side in a vacuum.