I think we are going to have to accept that deaths will happen, and sadly far too many. Think of how risky it has been since our species evolved, life has always been a tenuous thing at best. To suddenly think that we can remove the risk of death is at best naive. The only viable option moving forward, in my opinion, is to protect the vulnerable as opposed to attempting to control the global population for a sustained period of time which is just a ludicrous idea and clearly impossible in any meaningful way. Yes while we were learning about this pathogen there was a need to do what we believed would flatten the curve; now while our knowledge has significant gaps, it is still reasonable to suggest that the vast majority of at risks groups are well identified and transitively steps could be taken to protect them.
Trying to control billions in any meaningful way for an indefinite period of time will fail, of that there is no doubt so clearly a new approach is needed. We have accepted the risks of death and disease from so many human activities such as food additives and water tables absolutely polluted with an unfathomable chemical stew that are not theorized to cause cancer, but confirmed to cause cancer (as one example of accepted risk) so why is the risks of death from covid suddenly so unacceptable? Don't get me wrong, I support any and all reasonable efforts to mitigate and control the spread, but reasonable also must be interpreted as realistic and viable over the long-term. This virus is now endemic and it will never go away. Vaccines are rather variable in their effectiveness so waiting for that silver bullet is running the risk of setting ourselves up for failure. Again, in my opinion.
I personally believe that given the extreme and hard to anticipate unintended consequences of suddenly changing the global economic reality overnight; an economic reality that has evolved in concert with the species if you think about it, is just so risky. And I say that as somebody who believes that capitalism requires reasonable and realistic limits so I am not at all all about the economy first; however, clearly we now live in a global reality where capitalism is the central thread that maintains so many lives, perhaps in the end the vast majority of lives. If we accept that as a reasonable interpretation of the state of our species, it should be obvious that we cannot suddenly simply do away with our current lived reality to avoid the risk of death. I cannot help but think that what we are experiencing is simply the failure of creativity.
I also believe that if moving forward we attempted to protect the vulnerable the best way that science suggests while also maintaining some of the more sustainable aspects of social distancing (e.g. face masks in crowds, limiting numbers in stores) it gives us a chance to maintain realistic controls that can be sustained. Surely our species can come up with better approaches than the blunt tool of grossly arresting social interaction. We are social animals and we need to socialize. I like to think that if we looked at the problem more creatively we could find ways to protect the vulnerable while also respecting the fact that people need to live social and economic lives. Eventually we all know that we are going to allow in-person sporting and other cultural events, you can count on that, so what are we going to do given that is going to happen? How are we creatively going to pool our social efforts to return to life as a social animal while doing the best that we can to mitigate the risk to the vulnerable?
It isn't that I don't think that current efforts can be effective and even done better, I just do not for a moment think they are sustainable and if that is the case it actually suggests that we are wasting valuable resources now. So returning from my tirade to the thread topic, even if imperfect, to whatever extent herd immunity can mitigate risk, I think we need to be encouraging controlled herd immunity building efforts. Absolutely no matter what we do, people will die so a zero risk ethos is just silly and should never be allowed to be discussed at any level of society. Life is not a zero risk proposition ever, and it never has been at any point in history. So how much risk is acceptable? That seems to be the very tough question nobody wants to tackle, but one that needs to be asked and discussed frankly at all levels of society.
I cannot help but believe if we took even half of the money currently being spent trying to control as much social interaction as possible, instead focused on: protecting the vulnerable; maintaining the best aspects of social distancing; developing vaccines and allowing herd immunity to do whatever it is that it can do, I think such an approach is far better than believing that long-term social lockdowns are a reasonable response. I suspect that this is going to be controversial, but I will suggest that there is no way we can weather another lockdown type of social response for the subsequent waves that are guaranteed to come (it is the magnitude of these waves that are unknown).
So what is plan B going to look like? Again, returning to the thread topic I personally believe that as with many other pathogens our species co-exists with, herd immunity, imperfect as it is, will be one of the most effective and sustainable responses. How do we support herd immunity efforts while protecting the vulnerable?
Edit: For the mods, I understand how difficult your job can be and is, and as such I tried to make sure that my positions and language used were not framed in a political or divisive way. I hope that I achieved that goal.
