> I got banned from reddit for pointing out

You got banned from reddit. As in the whole site? For merely pointing this out? I see a lot of users stake out similar positions all the time without ramification. Perhaps you were banned from a subreddit, or perhaps this isn't the full story.

> without knowing what the r0 was for asymptomatic patients any type of lock down tells you more about the psychology of the person for or against it than about its effectiveness.

Aaah, the old "I don't know 100% that this blotch on your face is a melanoma because I'm not an oncologist, therefore don't do anything about it" line of thinking. A few points:

1. We have a good history of containing pandemics, using simple processes and practices. We begin by following these.

2. We have a good handle on how to reduce and control the outbreak of COVID-19. This has demonstrated that total eradication of the disease is possible within certain populations (i.e. island populations, areas with strong border controls). This has also demonstrated that flattening the curve only works if you do not ease up on the curve-flattening practices (i.e. Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia).

3. The impact on areas of high infection is not linear - due to the effectiveness of medical intervention when such intervention is not overwhelmed, flattening the curve significantly reduces overall deaths and allows for control of the disease even after it has reached relatively high saturation within the population.

4. Conversely, when medical capability is overwhelmed or absent, the death rate climbs significantly. (The US, UK and Iran demonstrate this). This is the "bulldozer mortuary" and "death panel triage" point in the pandemic.

5. The economic impact is not solely driven by lockdown. The US has limited lockdown, and they are being impacted severely because of lack of demand (people don't want goods at the price of their health). The government people seem to think the only driver of impact is Supply-side (i.e. shut down shops and the economy dies), and have completely underestimated people's willingness to sacrifice their health for the economy.

6. The biggest questions we don't know are the long term impacts of the virus on sufferers and the potential range of this impact does not extend into the positive. It appears to cause long-term damage to the cardiovascular system, and potentially the brain and other organs as well. We are seeing upswings in strokes, heart disease, and general mortality in sufferers and those who have recovered. To top it off, the potential lower end of this range appears extremely negative - with drastically lowered life expectancy in older patients and the potential for things such as a rise in dementia and significant cv illness as those who have recovered grow older.

With all of this answers that we have, and identifying the questions yet to answer, the path is very fucking clear. Countries which do something appear to end up much better off. Those who do not, fare far worse. Pointing to an economic impact now, as people are doing with Sweden, is only part of the answer and is an indication of the best picture of Swedish public health - there is nothing which will improve and the picture will only grow worse as time passes. Whereas for NZ, Australia, etc, they have borne or are bearing the impact, and will have a healthier, fitter and less traumatised population to revive demand again when things improve.