> Unless of course you want to assert that we should care more about some deaths than others. But that is a political statement, not an epidemiological one.

That said, I'd love to see a model that does assume the population cares more about some deaths (notably their own, and those of their close friends and family) than others.

The starting point for epidemiology and public health is that all life is sacred and worth the same, and we should protect life at all costs. There's pretty ample evidence that much of the general public doesn't actually believe this, though they'll publicly profess to because there's immense social stigma against wishing other people dead. But note how many people make comments in the vein of "It doesn't affect young people", "This is only a big-city disease", "It only affects Asian people", "Yes, yes I hope Trump supporters do drink some bleach", "I hope he dies of coronavirus", or "Good, Darwinism in action." The mods of r/coronavirus had to make a blanket policy against wishing people dead, and regularly lock threads because of it.

Public health interventions only work if people follow them, which implies that a.) the citizenry needs to trust public health experts and b.) their goals need to be aligned enough that citizens think it's in their best interests to comply. There's a very common failure mode for other system-design efforts in assuming that the stated goals of the project are the actual goals. I'd love to see a model that assumes people are self-interested actors that respond to fear and greed, rather than one that takes as a given that they'll act for the common good.