Erratum: apologies for the early readers of my newsletter yesterday where the link for Tony Lin great thread was mistakenly pointing to a private link in my Cronycle board, the platform I use for my newsletter curation. For those of you who would also like to browse the most relevant stories in the last 24 hours, here is an open access feed which you can either bookmark or follow(
Regarding "getting part of the population exposed now so as to build some immunity" - if we assume it will be pandemic, endemic, and that a vaccine is coming, then shouldn't the strategy in fact be to protect as much of the population as possible from exposure until the vaccine is available?
Intentionally exposing the population will just expose the vulnerable sooner - those who would most benefit from being protected until a vaccine is available, reducing their risk.
It seems more to be a good excuse for governments, such as the UK's, that may be unable or unwilling to take proactive measures to reduce long term harm.
The conundrum you mention is really hard to accept in a democracy. Current UK government has already taken a path that is against the wealth of its citizens (think Brexit) and so seems to be the case also for some of the US policies. But here we are not talking of simple economic issue. Where's the borderline in the political choice between "let's get protected more for next year" vs "let's accept a toll now that lowers our pension expenses"... because let's face it, this can easily become lateral thinking we should reject.
Regarding "getting part of the population exposed now so as to build some immunity" - if we assume it will be pandemic, endemic, and that a vaccine is coming, then shouldn't the strategy in fact be to protect as much of the population as possible from exposure until the vaccine is available?
Intentionally exposing the population will just expose the vulnerable sooner - those who would most benefit from being protected until a vaccine is available, reducing their risk.
It seems more to be a good excuse for governments, such as the UK's, that may be unable or unwilling to take proactive measures to reduce long term harm.
Thanks a lot for your excellent summary work.
The conundrum you mention is really hard to accept in a democracy. Current UK government has already taken a path that is against the wealth of its citizens (think Brexit) and so seems to be the case also for some of the US policies. But here we are not talking of simple economic issue. Where's the borderline in the political choice between "let's get protected more for next year" vs "let's accept a toll now that lowers our pension expenses"... because let's face it, this can easily become lateral thinking we should reject.