I think you're not seeing the forest for the various trees that you focus on in your Cassandra-like agonizing about the multiplying fallouts from the pandemic. You seem to have long struggled against accepting the logic of changing our self-centered ways of life long enough to actually contain the virus.
From the article you cited above, these are the most important and relevant paragraphs:
"Output losses of this magnitude are immense. The lost output in the Great Recession was only one-quarter as large. The economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
6 By another metric, this cost is approximately the estimate of damages (such as from decreased agricultural productivity and more frequent severe weather events) from 50 years of climate change.
7
For this reason, policies that can materially reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 have enormous social value. Consider a policy of wide-scale population testing, contact tracing, and isolation. For example, assuming 100 000 individuals are tested, the cost of testing would be approximately $6 million. According to current values for SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in some areas, approximately 5000 people will test positive."
And the economist's concluding paragraph:
"More generally, the immense financial loss from COVID-19 suggests a fundamental rethinking of government’s role in pandemic preparation. Currently, the US prioritizes spending on acute treatment, with far less spending on public health services and infrastructure. As the nation struggles to recover from COVID-19, investments that are made in testing, contact tracing, and isolation should be established permanently and not dismantled when the concerns about COVID-19 begin to recede."
While the economist who wrote this article agonizes about the economic consequences of the pandemic, he does not ignore the actual elephant in the room and the undoubtable necessity of removing him.