You kind of contradict yourself here to some extent. You present a scientifically sound solution, but it’s dependent on rational actors and an isolation/testing protocol that would be impossible to enforce, particularly in suburban/exurban/rural areas. You then curse the irrational actors that make your plan unrealistic.
Back in March when the plan was to flatten the curve if someone had said that by October shitloads of people would be testing positive and hospitals weren’t overwhelmed or even close to overwhelmed we’d have viewed that as a huge win. But now the entire discussion has turned to case numbers.
I keep flashing back to The Atlantic article from February about how this was essentially going to be uncontainable and we shouldn’t be surprised by that outcome.
As to the herd immunity thing I’ve seen studies that indicate previous corona virus infection T cells are effective for many people in combatting COVID which is why such a higher percentage of people are asymptomatic. They get infected and carry it but it doesn’t manifest into any symptoms. And that the low percentage of young people that have been affected likely have some genetic marker(s) that makes them more susceptible to it but it’s not clearly understood yet.
What are T-cells and why have they become a political football?“Throughout the coronavirus pandemic there have been fierce debates over the science – when to lock down, whether face coverings help and whether children are less susceptible, for example. The latest row is over whether we have been ignoring a crucial part of our immune response to the virus: T-cells. This matters because if people have more immunity to the virus than we thought, then perhaps we could abandon some covid-19 countermeasures.”
“Antibodies are sometimes seen as more important because they can stop viruses from entering the body. But once viruses make it inside, only T-cells can kill infected cells.”
“It takes a few days to obtain results for tests of T-cell activity against the coronavirus, compared with as little as 90 minutes for antibody tests, but a few groups have been testing on a small scale. They have found T-cells that react to the coronavirus in 10 to 50 per cent of people tested.”
"That doesn’t necessarily mean that up to half the population is immune to covid-19, says Alessandro Sette at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. Some of these studies, including one by Sette and his colleagues, looked at blood donations given before the current pandemic, to test for pre-existing immunity to the coronavirus. Others examined samples from people with covid-19."
“The most likely explanation is that the pre-pandemic blood samples that tested positive were from people who had previously caught milder coronaviruses, such as the ones that cause colds, and their T-cells are reacting to the one that causes covid-19. It is probable, although by no means definite, that such people would get less sick with covid-19, but they could still get infected – and pass it on to others, says Sette.”
"However, a Swedish study that tested about 200 people, including some known to have had covid-19 and their family members, found that those who had been sickest with covid-19 had more T-cell activity. This suggested it was directed against the current coronavirus, not old ones, says Marcus Buggert at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who worked on the study. ‘But we can’t say every single T-cell was induced by this new virus,’ he says.
As with antibodies, it is unclear how long T-cell immunity will last. ‘I have seen [people] using our data to say we should open up society. I definitely do not want that,' says Buggert.”“T-cells could explain some puzzling anomalies in antibody testing. 'We have had people with confirmed cases of covid-19. Their antibody tests have come back negative, but their T-cells tested positive. That suggests antibody tests are not telling us the whole picture,' says James Hindley at UK firm Indoor Biotechnologies, which has developed a relatively fast and simple T-cell test.”
“The firm’s work hasn’t yet been published, and its test has so far only been used on about 100 people. But Hindley’s team has found a few people testing positive for T-cell activity whose spouse had confirmed covid-19, yet they themselves somehow avoided it, as far as they know. ‘It raises the question of whether the T-cells kept the virus at bay,’ says Hindley."
"It is unlikely that questions such as these will be resolved until T-cell testing becomes much more common. Until then, says James] Hindley, the growing body of T-cell work should be seen as cause for hope – but not complacency.”https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253386-what-are-t-cells-and-why-have-they-become-a-political-football/
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