The phrase "the cure can't be worse than the disease" is a phrase I don't think most fully understand.

1) the virus does not just affect the elderly. New data out of Europe and the US shows this.
2) it is highly contagious and if we were not trying to contain it 1/4 to 1/2 of the workforce would not be working anyway which would not only overwhelm the healthcare system but also crash the economy. So you get the deaths with the economic crash
3) Data from previous pandemics show that countries that worked aggressively to get the health aspect under control were able to recover economically faster than those who did not.
4) Once trials of a treatment are fully proven we can start slowly to get back to a normal life.

This is not going to be easy. It is going to require sacrifice. And it is going to require each of us to come together and actually look out for our neighbor to see what we can do to ease each others burdens.