[Buckeye McFrog]

The problem with the "natural" approach to herd immunity is that it requires 90% of the population to be infected for herd immunity to kick in. 90% of the US population multiplied by the current hospitalization rate of 0.1517% gives us 450,549 COVID patients requiring hospitalizations. The US currently has 85,247 ICU beds

That presupposes that they all get sick and go to the hospital at the exact same time.. Our experience has shown that we can manage the case load and prevent that from occurring. Even in New York at the height of the pandemic.

Also, hospitals don't keep huge numbers of ICU beds open because it makes no economic sense to do so. But they are capable of ramping-up and greatly expanding that capacity on short notice. Especially with the umpety-ump thousand ventilators Trump keeps telling us he's produced.

My daughter is an ICU nurse so I know something about this. The biggest impediment to a ramp-up is frankly a shortage of people with her skills.

[FormerFRLurker]

That presupposes that they all get sick and go to the hospital at the exact same time..

No, they won't all get sick at the exact same time, but if there's enough of a surge ICUs could still be overwhelmed. We know that masks and social distancing help flatten the curve, which not only prevents ERs from being swamped but boosts consumer confidence in the economy as well.