I mean if we have arrived at a point where majority of the people can't be convinced of the existence of this, and the only way to make them understand is to do some damage, we have bigger problems as a society in front of us. You don't throw a kid under a bus if he doesn't understand you, you just keep trying with incentives and maybe minor punishments.
You do understand that everything would have been fine if we simply pretended this virus didn’t exist, right? A few extremely old people would have died slightly sooner. That’s it.
No, that is totally wrong. The medical system would collapse. See what is happening in Italy. Most of the critical cases require ICU. There aren't enough ventilators if everyone gets infected. And without proper care, not just old but even young people may face huge problems.
The disease is extremely contagious. Hospitals would've been even more overburdened as they currently are if we just "did nothing" because it would've spread much quicker.
You might get to the point where you need to make a choice between who you're going to accept in the hospital (younger people then get the fast lane over the elder due to potential higher amount of life years being saved). I believe its like that in Italy at this point.
If old people quarantine themselves the chances of them not getting this disease increase. I know a few elder (including loved ones) who I don't want to see passing away, so I have an interest in this.
On a different note, I also find it selfish and distasteful to feel careless about big groups of other people based on discriminatory elements such as age.
