Vincent J. Curtis
21 July 20
The first
principle of war is the selection and maintenance of the aim. Maintenance
of the aim is as important as the selection. In the pandemic war, the aim
keeps changing.
At first,
the aim was to “flatten the curve,” then it became eradicate the virus, and now
it’s to slow the spread. These different aims have each been used to
justify the same lockdown. The first aim was achieved within the first
two weeks of the lockdown, and then things went awry as more cooks fiddled with
the recipe. The second aim, eradication, proved impossible, and so we’ve
slipped into the irrational third, slowing the spread and prolonging the crisis.
Why slow
the spread? It’s a pandemic that isn’t going away. Many people are
going to get infected. But, over ninety percent of the people who get
infected are asymptomatic, meaning they didn’t even know they had it.
Young, healthy adults and children particularly can handle the virus
easily. Slowing the spread only delays the onset of herd immunity.
Meanwhile, the lockdown ravages the economy and adds to the life-years lost due
to the adverse health effects of the lockdown itself. We know to protect
the elderly and those with underlying conditions.
If you’re
hoping for a vaccine, what do you think mass vaccination does? It creates
herd immunity!
Slowing the
spread is an irrational aim. It prolongs the crisis. We need to get
through it quickly, not slowly.
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