Thread by @dasvee

1/ Another thing I don't understand about the herd immunity strategy:

Herd immunity accepts higher infection rates, and higher simultaneous cases.

Therefore it expects higher loads on health systems.

So it requires even more preparation than suppression/containment.

2/ If your plan was to let the virus rip through the UK as fast as the health system could handle it,then you'd prepare for this by:
~ increasing capacity in advance (dedicated field hospitals)
~ buying PPE gear for staff
~ buying ventilators, oxygen
~testing to measure progress

3/ "Herd immunity" requires MORE resources than lock down because the case throughput is much higher: the aim is for 60%+ to be infected. That's a lot of concurrent serious cases to fit into a year.

4/ I find it astonishing that supposedly intelligent people entertained the idea at all.

That includes the modeling team, the behavioural nudge scientists, even the eugenicists in No. 10.

5/ Perhaps their aim was to literally destroy the lives of those working in the NHS who would have triage tens to hundreds of thousands of simultaneous serious cases, condemning many who would normally be saved to an early death.

6/ Perhaps their aim was to kill off NHS staff exposed to high viral loads and no protective equipment.

This is so similar to Chernobyl - except Chernobyl was an accident.

7/ Yet there is, even now, whilst cases in the UK continue to sky rocket, the population is broadly in favour of the way the government is handling the crisis. What a hopeless country.

8/ I should have said earlier that despite herd immunity requiring more resources and advance planning, they chose to implement the policy with NO advance planning, or preparation, additional resources.

9/ I.e. saying "because we are going to go for herd immunity we don't need to prepare as much as other countries, and we need less capacity" doesn't even make sense on herd immunity protagonists' terms.