Re: Yes, it can kill people, it's true.
there is something missing from the narrative
If you adopt an entirely amoral perspective, then you could argue it's not a serious problem. You dig a series of large holes and as the (mostly) economically inactive people become very sick, you throw them in. In a couple of months, it's over and the rest of us get back to our normal lives.
If you feel a moral compulsion to attempt to treat people who are seriously ill then it becomes a real problem to match need and resources. If you do nothing to stop tens or hundreds of thousands of people becoming sick almost simultaneously it's ethically much the same as if you choose not to treat them at all.
It's not the risk to individuals that's the problem per se, but the risk of so many individuals becoming ill at the same time that the low individual risk still results in overwhelming consequences. The dilemma is that avoiding overwhelming consequences has overwhelming consequences of a different kind.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
