Quote:
Originally Posted by Zakalwe
I believe the majority of us are going to catch this at some point or other. It’s inevitable. More to the point, I assume that’s what the physicians advising the government believe. Certainly I can’t see any possible way of getting rid of the virus before it infects most of us.
If you accept that premise, then trying to shield the most vulnerable for as long as possible seems to make sense.
Personally I also think 1% will turn out to be an overestimate for the mortality rate, but I’m not married to the idea of arguing the toss since we’re all guessing on that score.
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Wow the UK method seems like a potentially disastrous approach. Even with the best implemented social distancing the majority of a population will be exposed at some point, until a vaccine is available to confer immunity. At least this is the case once you have pockets of community transmission. The idea isn't to decrease the total numbers of infected, but the numbers of infected at any given time. Even countries like Singapore and Taiwan who have been remarkably effective at limiting numbers aren't immune to an outbreak. They will be better situated to contain it. But the UK is setting itself up for a massive die-off as far as I can tell. Why wouldn't they want to spread this out over a longer period of time?
Regarding the US response, too little too late to avoid deaths that perhaps could have been prevented if we started these measures a week or two ago. But better late than never, and at least the majority of Americans are on board now I think. If not, they will be when they see a saturated health care system that cannot cope with the number of sick and dying.
Let's hope that when this is said and done the world at large has learned its lesson regarding pandemic preparedness.