While I don't propose what he says, I've noticed an attitude in quite a few older/more infirm people along the lines of "if it's my time it's my time"...
There is a 84 year chap on our street and a few of us have asked if he wanted help with the shopping etc. He's always been fiercely independent and mobile, and his response has been basically if he's to stay inside for months, he's got no reason to go on. Its one reason why I seriously worry about isolating the elderly for 3 months, many literally live to get out and have some interaction with society. I've seen first hand the effects of what happen when some do not, and its not nice.
Having worked for the NHS and Social Services in the past I’m inclined to agree with much of what you say.
This is a very difficult thing to weigh up and isn’t as clear cut as ‘just save as many lives as possible now’.
It’s an almost impossible situation for any government to find themselves in, and what’s in front of them right now is the immediate headlines... Yet history in fifty years time is what they’ll really be judged on.
Its not just the health & social services that are in impossible situations, most central & local government departments are now facing these with money being promised left right and centre, but no-one really knowing where, or when it is coming from. Meanwhile larger & larger numbers of the population are being socially & economically isolated.
I've literally no idea where the balance has to be struck, but the longer this goes on for the more long term economic damage will be done, which in turn will lead to social & health damage in the longer term. At the risk of using a cliché, it is the perfect storm right now.
There is less and less proof that young people are actually not affected. It's become a misconception.
Young people have always been susceptible to, or at least the consequences of, viruses like this. 13 years ago almost to the day, my younger sister succumbed to pneumococcal meningitis as a result of a weakened immune system following bout of influenza. She was 30, very fit & very healthy. Most of us understand that younger people can, and will contract it, and that there is always a risk that it could lead to hospitalisation and maybe even death. But this is true of a lot of infections out there.
Once we are past the crisis stage, we need to think very carefully how as a global community we cope with future infections, because they will happen again. It remains to be seen which policy has been the most effective, many countries have gone about it in different ways. But what we can be pretty certain about is that we can't afford to lock down every time a new virus emerges, at the risk of sounding dramatic, another one in a few years will be received very differently and I expect would lead to serious unrest (assuming this one doesn't, which remains a serious possibility).