Seconding your point: I think hard lockdowns are the only way to halt spread prior to mass vaccination and that’s devastating for businesses if we don’t do anything to help make up lost pay for workers, assist businesses with rent, etc. In some cases you might be able to soften it – pay restaurants to make delivery meal packs for high-risk people, etc. – but something like a bar, movie theater, mall retail shop, etc. in most cities probably doesn’t have an option to pay their rent in most areas without close to normal levels of customer traffic even if most of their staff are laid off.

It’d be expensive but other parts of the economy are booming and one point of having things like government debt is recognizing that it helps smooth the impact of disasters. We should be doing a WWII victory bond campaign investing in local businesses.