I don't understand how Europe+US governments (and epidemiologists!) say things like "It's basically inevitable that 40-70% of our population gets infected overtime". It feels like the Western countries gave up without even trying.
But yet, there's at least temporary evidence among several Asian countries (South Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong) that it's possible to get the R0 < 1, the infection rates to shrink, and seemingly be well contained well before any herd immunity effects happen.
In the US we spent only $7B to fight the virus but yet hundreds of billions to manage the economic impact. And yet, our companies/people will still suffer economically and humanitarily.
In an ideal situation, in ~8 weeks, Italy/US/Europe will only have dozens of new cases per day and will try extremely hard to contain these limited new cases and their spread. The only difference between Early Feb and Early May in these places will be that we had 3 months of potentially avoidable economic and humanitarian destruction- just to teach us the problem was serious and give us time to prepare systems to contain.
If the successful Asian countries (specifically Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, but also South Korea) show that this was possible to keep small, the voters in the Western countries should demand accountability from their scientists and government leaders.
But yet, there's at least temporary evidence among several Asian countries (South Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong) that it's possible to get the R0 < 1, the infection rates to shrink, and seemingly be well contained well before any herd immunity effects happen.
In the US we spent only $7B to fight the virus but yet hundreds of billions to manage the economic impact. And yet, our companies/people will still suffer economically and humanitarily.
In an ideal situation, in ~8 weeks, Italy/US/Europe will only have dozens of new cases per day and will try extremely hard to contain these limited new cases and their spread. The only difference between Early Feb and Early May in these places will be that we had 3 months of potentially avoidable economic and humanitarian destruction- just to teach us the problem was serious and give us time to prepare systems to contain.
If the successful Asian countries (specifically Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, but also South Korea) show that this was possible to keep small, the voters in the Western countries should demand accountability from their scientists and government leaders.