Read: Trump’s own allies don’t want him to quickly reopen the country

I can understand the wavering. The economic damage inflicted by our mass social distancing is enormous. And when the economy tanks, the human consequences are also enormous. But the decisive objection to Friedman’s approach, which is now apparently being pondered by the president of the United States, is simple: It would kill millions of Americans.

Estimating how many people will get the coronavirus, and what percentage of infected patients could die, remains difficult. In Germany, the government assumes that six or seven out of every 10 citizens could get it. The World Health Organization has estimated the case fatality rate to be 3.4 percent, meaning that about one in every 33 patients will die.

But let’s be unduly optimistic for a moment and imagine that we can somehow achieve “herd immunity” without infecting more than one out of every three Americans. Let us further assume that the true fatality rate turns out to be much lower than the current figures suggest—say, about one in 100—and that our hospitals somehow figure out a way to manage the flood of patients that would stream through their doors in need of lifesaving treatment.

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In that implausibly sanguine scenario, more than 1 million Americans would succumb to COVID-19 in the next few months. That is about as many people as the country lost in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II—combined.

There is an alternative to either shutting down the economy until we have a vaccine or letting more than 1 million Americans die. If we commit to strict social distancing now, we can radically curtail the number of new cases and buy time—time to put in place the measures we need to contain the pandemic in a less economically destructive way.

What are these measures?

First, we need to ramp up testing dramatically. Countries such as Singapore and South Korea have shown that it is possible to tame the outbreak by instituting a thorough test-and-trace regime. Each day, these countries test many thousands of people. Then they isolate those who have been infected and trace their contacts, so they too stop spreading the disease.

Second, we need to expand hospital capacity. The biggest danger posed by the coronavirus is that it will overwhelm the health-care system, leading to a dizzying spike in mortality. But over the coming months, we can increase the number of critical-care beds to deal with COVID-19. All over the country, gyms and exhibition centers are about to be turned into makeshift hospitals. Companies are ramping up production of urgently needed supplies, including masks and ventilators. Over time, medical students and other volunteers can be trained to perform basic tasks that free up trained personnel to do their lifesaving work.