We have to smash the curve so that we don't need the hospital capacity.
It turns out that getting the number of infected down close to zero would also be good for the economy.
I don't understand why so many people think that the best possible plan is for everyone to get infected. The best possibilities involve a few percentage points of the global population getting infected, no where near everyone.
This simply isn’t possible, and it’s a maddeningly irresponsible shifting of the goalposts. The public was sold these extreme tactics on the basis of preventing excess deaths, not locking down society for years on end until the virus (hopefully) goes away.
Respiratory viruses, once endemic, have never been completely suppressed. Even China is seeing a resurgence in cases. What we’re doing now isn’t sustainable or ethical, and we have to move on to smarter tactics soon.
The lockdowns are a necessary step to smarter tactics working.
My point is that if we move forward as if letting lots of people get infected is a 'smarter tactic', it's going to be worse in all ways. More death, more economic damage.
No, not “lots of people”, I don’t see anyone saying that. Given that it’s factually impossible to lock down the economy for a very long time we need conditions where the hospital system retains enough capacity to handle the really sick people.
Since it looks like we’re close to this (even in places like NYC that are sitting on a vent stockpile) we can start loosening the economy back.
The point of “flattening the curve” is not — and was never — to reduce the area under the curve. This is a contagious respiratory virus, and it’s going to spread until there is herd immunity. Maybe there will be a vaccine in 12-18 months. Maybe not. But regardless, we can’t go on for that long with over 30% of society out of work.
Most people are going to get this virus. If you don’t understand that, you are scientifically illiterate. You are pushing on the ocean to prevent the tide.
Trying to forestall the inevitable by keeping us all locked in our homes will inflict such massive economic and social collateral damage that it’s simply unthinkable. We won’t stop the virus, and we’ll burn down our society trying.
I never conceded that flattening the curve was not about reducing the area, so I have not moved any goalposts.
I was going to make a comment on this article about the meme being too effective, in that it convinced people that the only point was to reduce the load on the medical system. Of course the goal is to reduce the load on the medical system, but that's step one, to get though the first wave of infections and to a situation where the spread is potentially controllable.
I am well aware of the numbers in South Korea. The virus is still spreading. There are still new cases, every day.
We have managed to eliminate one human virus in history: smallpox. And we only did that through mass vaccination.
We have never eliminated a respiratory virus, nor have we ever developed a successful vaccine against a coronavirus, despite huge financial incentives to do it.
The inevitable outcome here is herd immunity. Maybe we’ll get there by vaccine, but not for a long time.
Well, Americans are going to be forced into multi-year lockdowns when they realize that reinfection is a real possibility and even if not that the infectivity of this is so high that lifting of stay at home orders will cause numbers to begin overwhelming hospitals again within weeks. Herd immunity is unlikely to save us in the short or even medium term.
There's talk of multiple strains or of it mutating in ways which aren't necessarily more deadly but make reinfection possible independently of the currently found 2% who seem to be testing positive again after "recovering" from covid
Then the powers that be will realize just how deep of a shit situation we are in. The people who are protesting now are likely infecting themselves or will soon know a loved one with this and soon they will personally realize how stupid they were to protest this. It's only a matter of time...
> think that the best possible plan is for everyone to get infected
That's like asking why does everyone think the best plan is for the sun to rise tomorrow morning.
It's not a "plan", it is fact. Everyone (to some level of precision) will be either have anti-bodies from infection or have been vaccinated (or the unrealistic enough to ignore; remain in isolation their entire life).
We don't have a choice in that. We can try to alter the parameters (rate, timing, etc.) of that. But, that is the limit of our control.
We don't run massive test and trace programs against cold viruses because they are relatively less harmful. We easily have the resources to run a massive test, trace, isolate and support program against COVID-19, and we can eradicate it using those methods.
And if a vaccine comes out before suppression is complete, so much the better.
The fact that we have only ever eradicated a pandemic by using vaccines is no reason to not try doing it without one. It's very hard to understand why people aren't screaming to spend a few hundred billion dollars to start doing this right now, as the payoff is essentially incalculable.
It turns out that getting the number of infected down close to zero would also be good for the economy.
I don't understand why so many people think that the best possible plan is for everyone to get infected. The best possibilities involve a few percentage points of the global population getting infected, no where near everyone.