The question on which views ultimately diverge is, not surprisingly, the one we're just coming to face now, which I asked above. How much socioeconomic dislocation are we willing to inflict on ourselves, for how long, in how many waves, to save how many lives (for now! thanks Craig)? It's not a novel sort of question. Life is full of risks we can't afford to eliminate entirely. Here's another way to look at it: cost/benefit analyses on pollution, radiation, etc simply assign a value to life and make the calculation -- I've read that it's conventionally about US$ 9 million, not sure how arrived at. But I'm watching livelihoods lost, businesses shuttered that will probably never reopen, educations curtailed, investments decimated, civil liberties endangered, etc, and thinking somebody really needs to start doing the math.