State projections for Covid-19
This is all fine and good.  And I should state that I am on board with the actions (in San Francisco&#x2F;California) taken so far.  However, I&#x27;m not unconditionally so.<p>I get that right now we&#x27;re buying time. My current understanding is that we&#x27;re trying to slow the spread of the disease because the existing health care system was going to quickly collapse under the weight; whether or not that should have been the case or not is a discussion for another day.  I also understand that we are -not- trying to contain the disease, just &quot;serialize&quot; its progression (so to speak) through the population.<p>Assuming that understanding is sufficiently correct, what I&#x27;m not hearing enough of is what is being done with the time we&#x27;re buying.  Many in the Hacker News audience likes to talk about &quot;externalities&quot; and how the wise appreciates those externalities in their actions.  Shutting down the economy has externalities; those externatlities can be life or death as well.  If the strategy of those implementing the &quot;shelter in place&quot; is one of just waiting it out: then I&#x27;m going to be off the wagon fairly quickly.  I want to start hearing strategies that start to address the issues of how we minimize impacts of this problem.  I want to know what we&#x27;re buying for the pain that we&#x27;re being sold on.  I want to know when people estimate that the societal damages of the illness start to be outweighed by the damages of our response.<p>I see the admin of the site suggesting we&#x27;re buying time for these things.  I want to start hearing this from the officials making policy.