I live in Poland. It seems most cases are connected with somebody who recently came from abroad. Closing borders may seem like a drastic measure but much less drastic that waiting couple of days and doing it anyway + much more.
My point of view is it is a bit foolish to slowly, gradually escalate measures. It would be probably wise cause of action with a completely new disease which we don't know yet, but it is not a new disease now. We saw what happened to China. We know it is difficult to control and if people are allowed to move it is neigh impossible to prevent from spreading.
That's averaged, of course. If your refrigerator breaks, your individual value will increase. But as a whole, it will still decrease.
food deliveries will still be permitted
all cafes/restaurants will be closed unless can guarantee at least 1 metre distance between customers
public services like post, transport remain
Crippling the global economy (and shutting down schools!!!) to stop COVID-19 hurts the future of 15-35 year olds the worst. But any reform is STILL going to be spent increasing healthcare funding -- to benefit the retirees impacted by COVID. $0 fixing the the damage to Gen Z, whose education and job prospects were delayed by (potentially) years, depending on whether we get sent into a recession.
I mean Gen Z and younger millenials are in for the biggest and easiest opportunity to get rich in our lifetimes. A combination of low interest rates, and then high market supply when a lot of old people die leaving their houses vacant, means a reduction in prices and cheap financing, as well as undervalued equities. Perfect time to get rich.
It impacts all ages, a significant proportion of young people also get severe breathing difficulties and need to be intubated/ventilated in intensive care units to be able to breathe, it's just that for young people the ordeal is harsh but survivable, while elderly people are more frail and die.
And the current situation is given the availability of healthcare. While everything is (still) good, it mostly kills 65+ year olds. If it spreads so much that there's no capacity to hospitalize young people and provide them with oxygen, then it will also kill large quantities of young people.
A lot of issues with shutting down schools is in regards to childcare and food(meal programs) in the United States. Not their 'futures'.
This is a wildfire. Shutting things down slows the fire's movement which buys time to fully track it and isolate only the affected individuals.
Specific to Italy, their hospitals are already past the breaking point in many areas. So people that would be easy to treat with medical resources are dying because the resources are exhausted. By stopping the immediate spread by isolating everyone their hospitals can get to a stable point in a few weeks.
The prevention measures obviously do hurt the youth the most. Maybe you calculate on the balance it's worth doing, but there's really no question that the shutdown does impact students more than retirees.
Personally I don't think the difference is just about timeframe (although certainly the immediacy of the threat contributes), but also about permanence. People assume that when COVID-19 has passed, things will go back to normal. If scientists said we could ban personal cars for a month and fix global warming, I suspect it'd get done. Similarly if they said for instance that we could never go to large public gatherings again, ever, there'd be a great outcry.
This is also an interesting study in momentum though. When countries start taking drastic measures on COVID-19 it makes others look bad if they don't follow along. I've never really bought the argument when the US says they can't do x or y for climate change because others aren't doing it, and so they'll be behind economically. The US is a leader - act like one. When America makes policy, others follow.
Compare this to the measures we could (and should) bring to bear on the youth problems you mention: The solutions are controversial, often need years to ramp up, with huge costs indefinitely. This is not to say these solutions should not be attempted! Just that you are comparing a temporary hack in a crisis to long-standing problems.
Knowing the inhabitants of a burning building are cancer patients, would that affect your decision to evacuate? After all, you could invest the evacuation effort into treatment instead! And the fire might turn out not so bad, right?
It would be equal parts hand-wringing, helplessness, and blaming the youth for not being tough enough to deal with communicable diseases (like they did back in the 1950s).
Many young people have grandparents whose lives they value. I am sure our son would be very distraught if one of his grandparents died, even though as a six year old he is at basically zero direct risk from this disease himself.
(And yes, he will inevitably have to deal with that distraught eventually... but much better at 16 or 26 than at 6.)
Crippling the global economy hurts old people worse than it hurts the young because the young are far more resilliant to disruption in their daily lives.
And depending on how badly something broke you do replace it. How many people do you know with 50 year old fridges?
It also gives more time to develop protocol to treat it.
"Far and away, the most important thing to do is flatten the curve of the epidemic so that our health systems can cope and to give time for the scientists to research vaccines and treatments."