1. The issue that worries experts about COVID-19 is not about how many will die. The issue is that our medical system will become completely overwhelmed, as happened in China, Italy, and as is starting in other countries. This is why you constantly hear about trying to "flatten the curve." The idea is to try and limit the number of sick, particularly those that have severe cases (which is allegedly around 20%), so that we have enough hospital beds, respiratory equipment, and doctors to handle the demand.

This is why the flu is not a good comparison, while the flu still kills a number of people each year, the number of people with severe cases is not appreciably different than the number that ultimately die. With COVID-19, if it is a 2% death rate, you have about 10x more people that will have severe cases and need to be hospitalized than the number who die. If you are one that believes the actual death rate is lower, than likely that multiplier is even higher.

If we overwhelm our medical system, then the death rate will increase — possibly exponentially. This is part of why people claim we can't use death rates from Italy and China, because many of those that died are people that did not get adequate treatment, due to a lack of resources, and could have been saved if there were respirators and doctors to provide the needed care. And, of course, if our hospitals are full of patients with COVID (and pneumonia, as a side effect of COVID), then possibly we could have other deaths from accidents, heart attacks, etc, because they can't get the quality emergency treatment, or have needed equipment, because of the system being overloaded.

2. This is more a "side effect" — how experts are recommending handling the pandemic have to do with 1 and 3, which in turn determines the economic effect.

3. The big issue I see is how do you adequately "selectively" isolate? So people who are 60 and over remain at home and try to isolate. The first issue, they still need food and, even if they get it delivered, then you still have issues with the health of the person who delivers the food, those who stock the food in the store, or customers that handle it before it is "picked" for that person's delivery, as well as the person that picked it. The same if they order food from a restaurant, or need something from Amazon.

The bigger issue is likely for those in senior living centers, as in Seattle. The issue is, for the number of non-Seniors that work in the facility, how do you isolate them? Many may have kids in school, so they could easily get the virus from their child and spread it to the senior facility, or their spouse works another job and can't take it off, and so gets infected. I'm not sure how you can justify isolating that entire family to protect the one that works in a senior center; or why businesses would be willing to grant "virus leave" to the spouse of someone who works in that type of facility.

Part of the issue is that we don't know enough about how COVID-19 spreads; particularly if the claims or some are true, that there are different strains that spread differently. Additionally, at least the last I've heard, they aren't sure that the body develops the antibodies to prevent you from getting sick again if you've had COVID-19 once — it is possible you could have had the virus, giving you the idea that you are now "safe," but then could get infected again. Additionally, the more people who do get sick, even if they don't have a serious case, the more likely it mutates into a "new strain" — which is why the normal flu keeps killing people year after year, because it mutates each year so that people's antibodies don't work.

From what I know, it is the problem of being able to "self isolate" the most vulnerable of the population that is leading to trying to get most people to isolate. I'm guessing there is more to this; I'm also not an expert, this is just some of what I've read. And in my case I'm not panicking, instead I care for someone with stage 4 COPD who is at high risk if exposed to COVID-19; so I've needed to stay informed.