[Ranxerox]

Is their health care capacity at risk? If not, then so what. There is no containing or stopping this bug. It will run its course, either quickly or slowly. “Flattening the curve” is supposed to ensure the emergency medical system isn’t suddenly overrun. It’s not going to ultimately stop the spread of the bug. If they could do that, we’d never catch a cold. Anything beyond flattening the curve enough to ensure continued available emergency care is just delaying the inevitable at the cost of destroying the economy. And you have to have an economy to have a health care system in the first place.

A valid point that is seemly lost in the discussion; it has never been about avoiding the virus altogether, only buying time to prepare the healthcare system and finding possible treatments.

[lastchance]

And to reduce the number of available hosts for the virus to infect. That can be achieved either by reducing the number of contacts an infected person has or immunizing the population. Since there is no vaccine immunity must come through natural means. Which usually is getting a virus and recovering from it. Isolating those who are high risk makes sense. I think that isolating those who are not high risk will backfire.

The virus will probably not just go away. If anything it may become a seasonal virus. If healthy people do not get a chance to build up natural immunity now when the virus returns that lack of immunity will put them at higher risk for major complications including death. It also means there is a greater chance of children contacting the virus and becoming very ill from it. Why? Because healthy adults and children will be the hosts available for the virus to infect.