Because putting entire nations under forced house arrest based on the output of computer simulations isn't even slightly sociopathic? It's literally got "social" in the word.
Argue that it's the right choice by all means. To argue that politicians caring about the economy - that thing that also keeps us alive - is "sociopathic", just shows a complete loss of perspective.
Ordering quarantine is quite obviously not sociopathic to anyone who understands exponential growth and can do basic calculations.
> To argue that politicians caring about the economy - that thing that also keeps us alive - is "sociopathic", just shows a complete loss of perspective.
It's hard to see how someone who directly weighs deaths against economic benefits in such a situation (before the pandemic has even peaked) could not be a sociopath, and by "sociopath" I really mean the personality disorder, not some subjective sentiment. It's a hypothesis, but one that would be easy to confirm empirically with standard personality tests.
You have to bear in mind that politicians in those positions have good scientific advisors. They were attempting to delay measures in order for the economy of their country (or their personal stocks) to come out better in the end. They were willing to risk this gamble, even though they knew that this results in many more deaths, because no country's health care system can deal with so many patients at once. Except for Bolsonaro, all of these sociopaths have backed off by now, because most sociopaths are also narcissists and they realized the many deaths would make them look bad.
That's the sad truth, whether you like it or not. The good news is that there are less sociopathic heads of states than one might think and the vast majority of all decision makers have reacted wisely. Let's not forget that.
Ordering quarantine is quite obviously not sociopathic to anyone who understands exponential growth and can do basic calculations.
Lots of people understand both yet are sounding the alarm as loudly as they can about over-reaction, the poor track record of epidemiology and the poor quality of the data. For instance it's not even clear COVID-19 is spreading exponentially. The percentage of positive results from tests done is not scaling exponentially, but only the raw numbers are being reported usually so an exponential increase in the number of tests can make it look like an exponential increase in spread.
The world does have experience of bad policy initiated by governments who were following what they perceived as scientific advice (of the kind politically acceptable to themselves). The worst one being Lysenkoism. And of course abuse of psychiatric evaluations to declare anyone politically opposed to the government as mad or bad has a terrible history as well.
You should really think a lot more carefully before declaring anyone who disagrees with you as having a personality disorder. Shutting down the world indefinitely will cause everyone to die: that is a fact. COVID-19 will not approach even a fraction of that, not even under the worst case projections. Obviously at some point the "sociopaths" as you put it have to win the argument or else we're all reverting back to stone age times.
You have to bear in mind that politicians in those positions have good scientific advisors
Having read the output of such scientists, I don't think that's at all obvious. You're assuming it, maybe hoping it, but scientism is a real problem in academia.
They were willing to risk this gamble, even though they knew that this results in many more deaths, because no country's health care system can deal with so many patients at once.
So far not a single countries healthcare system has come anywhere even close to collapse. All stresses have been highly regional and could have been handled by inter-region transfers, yes, even in Italy and China. In fact in Italy a politician wondered the other day why they are transferring patients to Germany when nearby Veneto the ICU is 2/3rds empty.
And a significant source of the pressure on healthcare systems is in fact the quarantine measures placed on staff, many of whom are self isolating without symptoms.
The belief in totally collapsed healthcare systems comes entirely from simulations of questionable utility (because attempts to simulate prior epidemics have failed).
The exponential spread of SARS-CoV2 in the early phase (without containment measures) is a fact. You will not find an expert who thinks its R0 without any measures is <=1, since no data would support this thesis. Look at the curves. Estimates are currently between 2 and 4. As for health care systems not collapsing: All countries have reacted with drastic measures and that is the reason why their health care systems have not collapsed. Some have also better health care systems than others (e.g. Sweden, Netherlands). If you think any country could have done without quarantine or equivalent measures such as constant testing, temperature measurement, forced quarantine of infected, and very stringent case tracking, then you really do not understand exponential growth and how the disease spreads.
I'm not declaring anyone who disagrees with me to have a personality disorder, I have laid out reasons why it is very likely that a certain small percentage of politicians has one. It can be inferred fairly well from what they say. In fact, a certain small percentage of the general population has them, so it would be a miracle if politicians where somehow exempt from personality disorders. Sociopaths lack empathy, so they have no problem weighing other people's lives against any other factor. That is a fact, too. As I said, it would be easy to confirm my claim with personality tests. It's not an outlandish view at all.
Argue that it's the right choice by all means. To argue that politicians caring about the economy - that thing that also keeps us alive - is "sociopathic", just shows a complete loss of perspective.