Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported that the White House admitted its approach to COVID-19 is to allow it to run rampant and allow herd immunity to eradicate the virus.
Most epidemiologists believe that the theory of herd immunity requires between 60% and 90% of the population to get the disease and develop long-lasting immunity to it before herd immunity kicks in. The folks pushing this approach claim they will be able to protect the most vulnerable and have the young and otherwise healthy get the disease, recover and become immune.
There is so much wrong with this approach. You have to begin by believing that testing positive one time will give you permanent immunity. No one knows if that is true. For most coronaviruses, the immunity lasts a few months to a year. But even assuming permanent immunity, at least 200 million Americans would have to get COVID-19 to achieve herd immunity. Even if we cut the death rate from 3% to 2%, about 4 million young, healthy Americans will have to die to achieve to herd immunity. That is unacceptable when the alternative is that Americans routinely wear face coverings, practice social distancing and wash their hands.
Drs. Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield and Steve Hahn must publicly condemn this approach. That will get them fired. But maybe it will wake up enough Americans to the dangers being put forward by President Donald Trump that a few hundred thousand lives will be saved.
