How can a disease with a 1% mortality rate shut down the U.S? Answered by Franklin Veaux:

[peggysue2]

59. A very grim but accurate statement, Professor

". . . dead people make rotten consumers and unproductive workers".

A punch to the gut that a swath of the population needs at the moment.

This should be the standard answer to anyone minimizing the economic effects of rising fatalities and/or suggesting (appallingly so) that the elderly or infirmed should sacrifice themselves on the Altar of Commerce, the cure-being-worse-than-the-virus theory.

Time to put the magical thinking away, the beautiful wave that presumably will wash over us, then disappear like a miracle. Even though this is a new virus, we know how these infections spread and what is effective to control that spread. We're just not doing it in a unified manner.

The leadership and will to act at the national level is nonexistent. We either get on top of this or we're facing a true catastrophe, medically and economically, one that could take the entire country down.