LogFAQs > #942184757

And yet, they still have the virus under control. While we don't.

Belgium, New York, and Sweden all have the virus "under control." How did they do it? What's the commonality among those three places? It isn't lockdown policy. It isn't mask policy. It isn't isolation from the rest of the world. It isn't track and trace. It isn't population density.

No, they all got it "under control" by allowing it to circulate and infect pretty much the entire segment of the population that it would infect. The only real difference in terms of driving the deaths per million count is how effective you are at keeping it out of nursing homes. If you do a really good job of that, you look like the average to good EU countries with deaths per million in the 100-200 range. If you do a really bad job of that you look like the Northeastern US with deaths per million of over 1000. If you do a decent/average job, you probably end up in the 300-600 range which is right where you encounter the US, UK, France, Italy, Brazil, etc.

In any case, Texas and Florida and everywhere else in the US, (the places where there never was a first wave and virus spread was minimal to non-existent back in March when they locked down just because New York did it and they figured that meant they had to too) are on the verge of achieving that as well. Whether it technically counts as "herd immunity" in the scientific sense isn't a debate I care to have, but it seems pretty obvious that this general pattern is the same just about everywhere (with a few minor exceptions such as isolationist islands, totalitarian regimes, and third-world countries that probably aren't testing or counting deaths at all). The virus circulates, outside of nursing homes, it kills whoever it is going to kill, then it's done and it fades away. The only reason the US ex-Northeast is spiking now is because it didn't spike when the Northeast did. But there was never any realistic hope that we could avoid that same spike. It's not practical for US states to isolate themselves indefinitely the way that New Zealand or Hong Kong or Ireland can. (Except where it is! Hawaii and Alaska should be taken as proof that geographic circumstances matter a hell of a lot more than "political leadership" or "masks" or whatever other obviously false boogeyman is the latest trend in media hysteria).

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