Discussion seems to have ossified very early on in the spring around the idea that there are only two endgames. The problem is that both are terrible!
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We let the virus run amok ('run it hot' in that disturbing phrase) and this kills about 0.3% of the uninflected population of the UK, so about 180,000 people +, mostly elderly, very quickly. For almost everyone, this is an unacceptable human cost. But at least by Christmas it would all be over, and the pandemic would more or less have burned out in this country.
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We alternate between periods of stricter lockdown and social distancing (mild lockdown) for at least 12 more months, perhaps indefinitely, incurring relatively large numbers of covid deaths (perhaps in the end almost as many as via strategy 1, but over a longer period of time) AND a very large number of other deaths due to a failing and partially closed NHS, rising unemployment, lower standards of living, and lower general public health even among the healthy (missed vaccinations, cervical smears, worse management and diagnosis of chronic but non life-threatening conditions).
Seven months into this, I think we have to concede that modern science hasn't given us a Manhattan Project. With almost infinite resources and the eyes of the entire world on the same problem, I thought it was possible that some kind of paradigm-shifting advance in vaccination discovery might be made, completely altering the speed and maybe even effectiveness with which one could be rolled out. In fact, there's been no great leap forwards. We're going to be waiting a while and even then the vaccine is likely to offer only partial and somewhat temporary immunity. So it won't eradicate covid.
In that case, why aren't we looking carefully at targeted infection of the population? In previous generations we've asked young people to fight in wars with a very high chance of mortality or lifelong morbidity. (As a child I used to visit a home for disabled soldiers, including those blasted to bits in WWI. Long covid looks like a piece of piss compared to that.) We also made it mandatory (conscription). Here I think we could ask for volunteers, where people in the least risky age brackets, after full medical exams (to check for underlying cardiac defects or other problems) would be inoculated in controlled conditions with the smallest amount of covid able to produce active infection and community.
Why would this work? Well, there would be a selfish gain. If you think you're likely to get covid anyway, why not get it as part of a study where you're having everything monitored and would immediately be given the best treatment if you became very ill? Afterwards you would be able to resume something much like your old life with confidence that you weren't about to get it or infect others.
Would anyone volunteer for this with no financial incentive? I would (though in fact have already had covid) because I would prefer to go through 2 weeks of illness than watch my children's future, our careers, and our long-term health being slowly smashed up.
Would it work? Not everyone in the right age range without health problems would have to volunteer, but admittedly most of us would to get to the 50% infected rate now widely seen as achieving herd immunity, e.g. www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00451-5.
Would it be as big a sacrifice as previous generations have made on behalf of the old, the disabled, and, most of all, our own children? I don't think so.