Wuli wrote: “It would be better if society fully sheltered & vaccinated all the vulnerable - the very elderly and those with comorbidities, and then set about achieving herd immunity in the rest of the population, by way of asymptomatic and otherwise non-fatal infections.”
Wouldn’t that also be an infringement on freedom? Or, will the ‘fully sheltered’ be volunteers?
“Wouldn’t that also be an infringement on freedom? Or, will the ‘fully sheltered’ be volunteers?”
Yes, the “fully sheltered” would do so voluntarily (in MY view), but also, yes, the government agencies and the health care establishment should work together to provide such places to those for whom it is not possible to do so on their own.
60% of infections usually occur in the home - viral load + enclosed space + close contact + some period of time, yet what we (as a society, during this “pandemic”) never did was to make it more possible, than it is, for asymptomatic infected persons to go to “quarantine dormitories” (or some such), until either 14 days had passed or they developed symptoms serious enough to go to a hospital. No. People test positive, go home and while they wait to see if they get symptoms, when they do start to get symptoms they have often already infected one or more persons in their home, increasing the “case” counts;
whereas, if “quarantine” alternatives were available, with very minimum “nursing”/healthcare staff assistance, a good part of the “surges” could have been avoided.
Of the only cases in all my extended family, all relatives included, they all occurred after one household member tested positive, became ill, and infection and illness followed with other household members. None of them had isolated instances where just one in the household tested positive (whether already ill or not), that one “stayed home” and everyone else in the house remained unaffected. And yes, the illness for those who were infected was always harsh for the adults and next to nothing for the kids. In all cases the first one infected was one of the adults. If those initial positive infections in each household had been able to go somewhere else for 14 days, at least, their household would not have made the total contribution to the case count that they eventually did.
And yes, none had comorbidity factors and like more than 90% of the population the experience was not fatal.
Interestingly, of all the 80+ year old persons I know, including two relatives, likely due to lack of comorbidity factors, none who got a Covid19 illness had a severe case. One was hospitalized briefly only to help compensate for dehydration due to three days of diarrhea.