The theory of whether a state should isolate with a lockdown depended on:

1. Did that state have enough ICU beds for the fraction of their state population that was at risk, and enough staff and supplies for those ICU beds? ( with 20/20 hindsight Utah and Wyoming for example might not needed a lockdown, but New York and New Jersey were not)

2. Do we isolate as a State for a period long enough for researchers to come up with drugs and treatments that reduce the fatality rate to some acceptable level, say like that of the average fatality rate for +60 year olds getting yearly influenza?

We cannot reduce the risk of death by epidemic to zero. We cannot take to zero all risk of death outside of disease either.

People do not like to talk about it but we need to set a price each year for what it is worth spending to reduce the loss of one year of life. Once set as a price, spend the money on the “low hanging fruit” to compassionately save the most “lost years of life.”