Ricky1985 wrote:
Edit - another point worth mentioning is that the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, was very adamant that the fatality rate for this disease is 1%, not the 3-4% we're seeing elsewhere. I think it is this belief that is shaping the government's approach; Burnwinter linked to the article by Robert Peston in the Spectator this morning and it seems he knew what he was talking about: sacrificing 1% of the many, many thousands that catch the disease in order to build up herd immunity. That seems to be the idea behind their approach.
It strikes me as an extremely callous approach.
With a spread of 2.68 (New South Wales estimate) the herd immunity threshold is around 60%, so about 40m people infected by the time you get there. The reality is however that the UK will be deep in crisis mode before that level arrives.
NHS doctors are predicting ICU facilities will already be overwhelmed in a fortnight. If Johnson's bureaucracy pursues this approach to its limits, you're looking at tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, mostly over 65, dying, potentially with many of them denied hospital care.
Containment can't stop the problem but it could prevent this scenario for an awful lot of families, which is why many countries are adopting much more decisive measures.
I don't think an approach based around the UK population developing herd immunity through exposure will be politically tenable. The reality's going to be "late containment" ...
