Totally agree. I just don't think the primary goal in many states has been to simply "limit the spread". The goal has been "economic destruction so Trump can be defeated". And, they have been wildly successful in the first part.
I think, the goal shouldn't to "limit the spread". The goal should be to "control the spread" to a rate that doesn't overwhelm our hospitals. Granted, that's a tricky thing to do with a virus that take 7-14 days to present symptom. So, we were right to be aggressive at the start.
If we could start over, I think the correct approach for MOST places would have been:
- Isolate people >50 years old as much as possible
- Super-Isolate people >70 and in poor health.
- Keep schools open, but operating with increased hygiene and fewer large gatherings
- Eliminate large gatherings of adult.
- Encourage all those who can work from home to do so, - Let nearly all small businesses continue to operate, but with Social Distancing (Masks, limits on capacity, etc) in place
Allowing the virus to spread and exhaust itself among the young and healthy would ultimately have been a less painful course of action. I wish someone would have modeled that.
I think that idea really is not feasible. How many people actually fall into the "young and healthy" category? I find that 16% of the population is over age 65 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/AGE775218). Another 8.6% of people under age 65 are disabled. I do not know how they determine disability. Conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity increase the severity of Covid-19--how many people have those? According to the CDC, 39.8% of the population is obese, and 10.5% have diabetes (www.diabetesresearch.org/diabetes-statistics). Not to mention the fact that even among the "young and healthy", Covid-19 still kills at a rate higher than influenza.
I think that the answer is to get everyone to consider every other person a potential source of infection and to behave accordingly. Wear the masks, practice social distancing, wash hands frequently, don't face other people if they are less than 6 feet away. Etc.