One of the hardest things about handling an unprecedented crisis is that you can't focus 100% of your attention on it. Other problems don't go away, and can become deadly if ignored. Every decision is a trade-off, even when dealing with the worst calamity.
Some of those other dangers will take their toll over time, long after the all-consuming immediate crisis has passed. It's hard to think about the long term when there are emergency sirens blasting in your face, but you DO have to think that way. The clock never stops.
Unfortunately, panic leads people to demand an impossible level of focus and think only in the short term. Politicians are poor at long-term thinking, in part because voters rarely reward them for it. But yesterday's shortage of long-term thinking made today's crisis worse.
The next crisis is still coming, and the one after that. They probably won't slow their approach because the problem occupying all of our attention today makes it difficult to discuss or plan for them - but if we don't, the coming crises will become far more dangerous.
With the coronavirus, our choices have been framed as saving lives vs. suffering economic damage. It's actually a much more complex decision, in both directions: failing to control the virus can make the economic pain worse, but also the economic damage WILL kill people.
At some point, the number of people killed by economic collapse would surpass the number of people killed by the virus. It would take longer for them to die - from crime, poverty, despair, medical issues other than the virus, and eventually malnutrition - but it would happen.
It is a terrible thing to have to choose between unthinkable measures today and uncountable devastation tomorrow. It's not an easy call for anyone, either way. Nobody should claim otherwise. May those who write our history remember that we had no easy choices. /end
