Are hospitals approaching capacity? That’s what we should be watching. This thing can certainly go up and down week by week.
And while specifically protecting nursing homes and the elderly is obviously being attempted, that's just far harder than one might think: nursing homes have a lot of employees, almost all of which are rather young. While some contacts can be minimised by, for example, switching to external catering, the need for care, cleaning, and medical treatments are rather inflexible.
Some may think we should "sacrifice" them immediately, because living without a mocha latte grande whatever just isn't okay, but if we'd face mass starvation, I'm pretty sure that everybody would agree that we can't keep going. Of course, that's unlikely, but let's not pretend that there's some (sane) group of people out there, that actually say "under no circumstances may any life be put in danger, ever".
The US has just suffered its largest job losses in history. The people who lost these jobs skew heavily toward lower income brackets and little or no savings. The losses are still growing.
How can you say something like this with a straight face?
It's meant to be the worst possible reason to end the lock down, with "otherwise everybody dies" being the best possible reason. Everybody falls somewhere between these extremes. I just wanted to make clear that there is no sane position that responds to the worst possible circumstances by saying "lives must not be lost because of Covid-19, but I'm fine with them being lost because of our reaction to Covid-19".
My personal opinion is somewhat close to yours, I believe. I'm aware that a massively shrinking economy has severe real world consequences.
After that, you're expected to isolate for two weeks no matter what, because any test wouldn't necessarily detect an infection if it's still in the earliest stages.
[1] https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/corona-deutschland-intensiv...
Now I look like a fake news idiot :D