There's this weird thing happening in the US right now. No one seems to have any plans for how to deal with the coronavirus, and there's a lot of misinformation, and mistrust for scientists and public health officials for various reasons.
Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone.
And then there are wild, and ridiculous conspiracy theories, and that all of this is a hoax because a friend-of-a-friend has this or that happen or they don't know anyone who got it, or everyone is lying.
But my bigger issue has to do with the inaction on the part of our government. They have decided that the economy is the only important thing, and that public health doesn't matter. They want to let the virus "run it's course" or let herd immunity take over.
There are two inherent flaws in the logic: (1) there is absolutely no consensus or scientific evidence in support of the virus infecting you just once, nor do we know if you remain a carrier (or for how long) after you've tested positive or recovered.
And (2) there is no plan to actually do anything other than throw our hands up. No research into finding ways to prevent the spread. No mask mandate to slow the spread. No real contact tracing. No increase in the amount or availability of testing to be able to see if the plan is working. Ideally you should be regularly testing large numbers of people to validate the virus isn't recurring.
So about the "let it runs its course" - without adequate testing this is likely to continue to propagate and hospitals will be filled for quite some time. And we don't know what that means. 6 months? (It’s already been 4 1/2) A year? Forever? And holding out hope for a vaccine that will immunize you forever is just silly. That ain’t reality.
As for expecting "herd immunity" first let's look at what that means:
Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or social immunity) is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune.
So in essence it's people who have an immunity protecting those that don't. It works for many things. And in theory it sounds like it would work with this. Only we don't know if you can develop an immunity based on having had it.
If we were actively looking at people who had it, following its course, and understanding the virus on a large scale then maybe this would work.
But going into it blindly and hoping for the best is stupid. Hope is never a strategy. You can't wish this away.
And if it propagates to a larger number of people then the economy is doomed anyway.
So the idea that the only focus should be the economy is nonsense.
We're screwed. And the only way out appears to be new leadership. Just saying.
Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone.
