When I see someone like the Lt Gov of Texas say that we need to accept some loss of life to restart the economy, I know he doesn't mean people he cares about. Its easy to sacrifice nameless people on a chart.
Of course decisions that risk lives do happen a lot especially in wars. Certainly when first responders rush into a dangerous situation risk is involved. Usually they are trying to minimize additional loss of life or sometimes property loss.
Its also been clear throughout our history that people have been willing to take dangerous jobs in exchange for compensation. Its much more common to be willing to risk other people's lives.
We obviously should be working to get the economy going and as we learn how to avoid the virus we need to incorporate those behaviors into the way we work. More testing can identify risk as can other measures like temperature monitoring and oxygen level monitoring.
Antibody testing can help determine who is likely to be immune, although not sure individual immunity protects those who contact you. You might still be able to spread the virus via the items you wear or personally.
We talk about essential industries and ultimately almost everything becomes essential at some point or we probably wouldn't pay people to do it.
Open up the economy safely with as little risk as possible. Increase testing and availability of PEP for health care professionals and others.
We also might want to consider how many essential items are dependent on foreign suppliers.
The odds are pretty high that this isn't the last virus we will have to deal with.
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