@ToolGuy In general I would agree with your rebuttal and I took personal measures based upon those projections but the numbers have not added up, not even close to original projects that have been downgraded and revised even so far as the metrics used to calculate the death toll. I am happy that the death toll is lower than projected but the scientist in me wants to know why the models were so far off the mark. My concern is that the death toll resulting from the economic upheaval will be far greater than what was avoided by flattening the curve. The virus is real but is it the viral threat that the media and government have led us to believe? Was the cure worse than the disease and did powerful, minority players use this event for their own benefit and to the detriment of the majority? I don't know and I won't know until this thing plays out of the next year to 18 months but I would like to know what others think, even if I don't agree with them.

I'm not even going to try to guess what a new normal will be until another wave of this hits and the causes of that wave (opening society back up to soon, people breaking quarantine, whatever) is determined.

One quibble I do have is that your using automobile deaths and fast food menus as equivilant is misleading - if the car crash up the street could be tied to the car crash on the other side of town you bet auto fatalities would be treated differently. Just look the continuing expanse of safety features autos are now required to have as standard as an example of the government's response/responsibilities to reduce auto fatalities. Different issues require different means of combating them - picking the right one is the tricky part. You can't handle accidents the same way you handle poor diet or diseases.

@1of5 Granted, each accident is different and unique in its own way, however, taken as a whole the design of the highways, safety features in vehicles and driver error are quite consistent when viewed as a greater whole. Look at how long safety features were delayed by automaker lobby groups, plenty of deaths could have been prevented had steps been taken sooner. One of the underlying conditions that determines COVID death rates is morbid obesity and diabetes, both of which have been linked to the fast food industry. The fast food industry has slowly changed their menus to more healthy options but only because of the profits to be made by meeting those demands and this took decades, many more preventable deaths.
I definitely agree that there will most likely be more waves of contagion and resultant deaths as the people are let out of confinement, probably 2 more waves this year if I had to guess. What I do wonder about is how great the death toll will be based upon the actual lethality of this virus compared to what we have been told so far by the media, compared to the resultant death toll from the economic impacts of the shutdowns. I am all for quarantines if that is what is required but if only a small segment of the population needs to be quarantined to protect them from the virus and flatten the curve then why have a general quarantine and the resulting economic impact on the average person? The big corporations can be damned, they can weather this economic storm but they are also the first ones in line for compensation from the taxpayer, the little guy who loses his job or his small business does not have that luxury and will be the last one to get compensation.

@Surfpirate the point of my quibble is that each has to be addressed in the best possible manor unique to each ones means of lethality - which the government tries to do. In your examples it's the corporations holding back the government from trying to help us - a problem that proceeds both of our births for centuries. Solving that is a much different animal but no less vital.

We only have a vauge idea how widespread it actually is, so all numbers are just best guesses at this point. We don't even know who should be quarantined at this point so a general quarantine is about the only option until we know more.

The one thing I will predict is that socialism will be viewed in a more favorable light as capitalism continues to fail people, but no idea to what extent.

@1of5 One of the questions I keep asking myself is why is there not more wide spread testing so it can be determined just who is safe to go back to work and who is still under threat? This does not seem to be a priority.