haven’t we already sacrificed 210,000 people to this...
Closer to around 250,000 looking at the excess mortality numbers for 2020. We missed a lot of COVID-19 deaths earlier on when we had no idea what it was and didn’t have any reliable tests for it.
Problem is we’ve only got about 10% of the US population exposed to it. With an R0 of 2.5, that means herd immunity is likely about 60% (1-1/R0), which means we’re roughly 1/6th of the way through this. A safe and effective vaccine is around the corner and every inoculation brings us one closer to herd immunity with no risk of a death.