LogFAQs > #936735075

Corrik7 posted...

Let me make this easier to understand. So, let's say right now 250k New York are confirmed infected by the end of this wave. Let's assume 50% asymptomatic+ didn't get diagnosed on top. So 375k infected total.

New York population is 19 million.

So, nearly 2% of the population was infected and "immune".

So you are gonna say well wave 2 comes and 98% are still left to be infected. Sure, but... Now 2% of the population can't infect or carry which by nature social distances already. You will still have pockets, but the numbers won't rise like the first wave overwhelmingly due to the already infected. By then, you have more beds and ventilators already ready to go. Proper PPE. You don't need to social distance as much barring maybe major events.

So the second wave comes and maybe 2% get infected again but over a longer time period without lockdowns and medical data on working medicines or such. Now you have 4% infected. So on and so on with each wave getting longer to infect and easier to manage to the point that you don't have to worry at all about the curve.

I understand the idea, but if each cycle takes, say, a month (in actuality it will likely be longer) that's 30 months to geet up to the ~60% of the population you need for herd immunity, which is longer than our (admittedly optimistic) vaccine timeline. In the meantime, a ton of people will have died and the economy will have been shut down for a substantial fraction of the time anyway.

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