I have a sick feeling the “experts” will decide that Herd immunity was the way to go after all, but only after the economy has been totally trashed and the bloody, violent riots have been put down.
How is what we are doing anything but approaching herd quasi-immunity slowly [NYC excepted]?
Everybody knows that herd immunity is the only answer. The only questions are how fast to achieve it and how to achieve it. I see three different scenarios:
1. Zero controls, life mostly as usual (e.g., the Netherlands). This is the “Let’s just get it over with” approach. Huge numbers get sick all at once, health care system collapses. Achieve herd immunity entirely through everybody getting sick and their immune systems providing immunity (which is not yet well understood). Maybe 80% of the population will have gotten it (just my guess).
2. Medium controls; modest quarantine and economy controls. Slow down rate at which people get sick. Allow time for vaccine to be developed as well as drugs to act as prophylactics or cures. Maybe 60-70% of the population will have gotten it (again, my guess).
3. Full controls; strict quarantine over longer time period, strict economic controls of business. Really slow down the rate at which people get hospitalized and die. Allows a lot more time for vaccine and prophylactic/treatment drug development. Maybe 45-65% of population will have gotten it before the vaccine was introduced. Far fewer seriously ill and dead. But huge economic devastation, depression, and major deflation. Possibly huge inflation taking off after it is over.
The disease is among us, so herd immunity is literally the only way to stop the disease. We will either achieve that through spread and antibody formation, or through a vaccine. But we have no idea - we still only test those who show signs of the disease, even though we know many people have the disease but show no symptoms at all.
We also have NO way to know how many have been exposed already. It could be this disease has been spreading for many months or a year, and a large part of the population has had it already and has immunity.
Politicians and planners have been flying completely blind, so usually default to the worst case scenario.