Early on, we feared the worst. Based in no small part on the extravagant predictions of serial alarmist/lockdown scofflaw Neil Ferguson, a British epidemiologist, the worry quickly became: our hospitals will be swamped!
To prevent that, governments around the world
- instituted lockdown orders, shutting down most commerce and peaceable assembly, to “flatten the curve,” thereby postponing many incidents of coronavirus and giving hospitals a steadier workload over time; and
- set up emergency clinics and hospitals, to take on overflow.
In the U.S., the Army Corps of Engineers contracted with private companies to set up field hospitals. Given the alarmist talk of “exponential growth,” that sure seemed like a prudent use of $660 million.
Now?
Well, most never saw a patient.
Many field hospitals are being dismantled.
And so is the case for the lockdowns: the hospitals are generally not being swamped, which means that as summer approaches we can open things up and let herd immunity build up.
Indeed, we may already have reached that condition, according to Nic Lewis writing on Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. blog.
At issue is the “Herd Immunity Threshold” (HIT). The disgraced Ferguson’s original HIT was over 50 percent, while Lewis argues that the actual HIT level “probably lies somewhere between . . . 7% and 24%,” suggesting that “total fatalities should be well under 0.1% of the population by the time herd immunity is achieved.”
Why the lower HIT?
More realistic models take into account human diversity — a point also made by economist Daniel B. Klein, who adds important truths like “[f]or most people COVID-19 is scarcely a disease at all!”
It turns out that being reasonable about this pandemic requires neither complete gloom and doom nor risky response.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “The Rationale Has Ended”
“total fatalities should be well under 0.1% of the population by the time herd immunity is achieved.”
Is that the percentage of those infected or of the total population of a given area?
New Jersey is considered a hot spot but even the hardest-hit counties (Bergen, Essex, Hudson) have a fatality rate well under one percent of the county’s population.
There’s no way to know how many people are or were infected, so how do they know when herd immunity has been achieved?
This has nothing to do with disease or public health. The radical Left has been handed a tool, to use against President Trump, the people, who voted for him and against our freedom, as well. Using a glorified overwrought version of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, they are trying to make this country fail and to bring it down. This nation has enemies, which need to be dealt with…