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.
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.