This whole article and mind set is stupid, selfish and irresponsible. All things and opinions aside the one fact no one can argue is our health care system is not equipped to handle what will happen if this above theory is implemented. Again people, ignore all you want but if you think you know better I encourage you to contact anyone you know actually working in the health care system and get first hand facts about how the place they work for is equipped to handle a mass infection. Again, the social distancing is to flatten the curve so hospitals can get preparedSomething I am thinking about. Not meant to generate argument:
I am already seeing quite a few people arguing that we should just expose those who aren't in the "at risk" population, let herd immunity develop, and then when the "at risk" folks enter back into the world the virus won't exist in the population in a high enough prevalence for it to be a major concern. This is from Tyler Cowen's blog:
"Herd immunity," time consistency, and the epidemic yoyo - Marginal REVOLUTION
Saloni has long and detailed arguments against herd immunity. Here is Caplan on Hanson. Here is Kling on Hanson. Here is the Taleb critique. Here is the underlying Imperial College paper everyone is talking about. The bottom line is that “locking everyone up to bend the hospital admissions...marginalrevolution.com
Let’s say we expose lots of people to the virus rather quickly, to build up herd immunity. Furthermore, we would let commerce and gdp continue to thrive.
Even if that were the very best policy on utilitarian grounds, it might not be time consistent. Once the hospitals start looking like Lombardy, we don’t say “tough tiddlywinks, hail Jeremy Bentham!” Instead we crumble like the complacent softies you always knew we were. We institute quarantines and social distancing and shutdowns and end up with the worst of both worlds.
Alternatively, let’s say we start off being really strict with shutdowns, quarantines, and social distancing. Super-strict, everything closed. For how long can we tolerate the bankruptcies, the unemployment, and the cabin fever? At what point do the small businesspeople, one way or another, violate the orders and resume some form of commercial activity? What about “mitigation fatigue“?
Again, I fear we might switch course and, again, end up with the worst of both worlds. We would take a big hit to gdp but not really stop the spread of the virus.
I also can imagine that we keep switching back and forth. The epidemic yoyo. Because in fact we find none of the scenarios tolerable. Because they are not.
A couple reasons to be skeptical of the "just get herd immunity over with" approach comes from Arnold Kling. http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/herd-immunity-and-exposure-policy/
Two reasons to hesitate about doing this. One is that it is not certain that people who have had the virus are immune. There are anecdotes about people re-acquiring the disease. Perhaps there are multiple strains, rather than “the” virus.
A second reason to hesitate is the high rate of death among health care providers, many of whom are young with healthy immune systems. This suggests that there are some other factors that affect risk, and you want to know more about those other factors before you try this approach.
It is true that we are early on in this, but I think it is also true that this, whatever this is, is not sustainable for months on end, and months on end is what I am more frequently reading this may require. Mainly I am thinking of economic reasons. From a utilitarian perspective there will come a point where the economic ruin of tens of millions, or a hundred million, will be viewed as worse than the deaths of 2 million. We are still trying to stave off a wave that could overwhelm our medical system. Seeing as how we reacted so slowly, and the draconian measures that have worked in places like China are off the table for us, the long game is hard to envision.
I don't know the answer, but I anticipate very tough decisions will have to be made within a few weeks.