thanks to EarlG at democraticunderground.com
Perhaps the worst year in American history is coming to an end. If not the worst year it is most certainly in the top ten. The corona virus would have made 2020 a bad year just by itself. Having the corona virus at a time when our country was being led by the worst president, and possibly leader ever, really multiplied the effects including unnecessary deaths.
To no one’s surprise Wednesday content of emails within the executive branch were released showing top Health and Human Services personnel lobbying for a “herd immunity” solution to be pursued as a policy.
Just doing some simple approximating math gives an idea of just how disastrous such an insane idea this is. The goal is 70% of the population being infected. With 330 million people in the US that would mean something in the neighborhood of 235 million infected. Now that wouldn’t be all at one time. But right now the US has approximately 7 million sick with corona virus and most hospital beds in the US are full.
So getting 235 million infected would mean either a very long time horizon or just giving up on most folks and having most folks fend for themselves. Neither is a very good choice. Imagine the people dying in their homes if people were just totally left on their own. Imagine being someone who would have to go in and clean up such a mess.
Like hospitals, medical personnel has its limits. Like other humans they are succumbing to the virus despite taking precautions. Imagine how bad it would have been with a herd immunity policy? Medical personnel would be devastated even more than they are now.
Continuing with the math, even with a low death rate of 1% leaves the US with almost 2.5 million dead . More likely with the lack of hospitals and medical personnel that number would shoot up rapidly to twice or three times that number – to 5 to 7.5 million. That’s a lot of bodies to clean up in a short time.
{Just a pause here to understand what smart move it was for Republican Senator David Perdue to buy stock in body bag companies before any of us knew what was coming. Wonder how he ever saw that opportunity that most of us missed.}
With a virus that has been shown over and over to be able to reinfect despite anti-bodies being developed in a human body, would 70% – or any amount – ever be enough? One thing that must be true if herd immunity is to work is that having had the corona virus a human body must no longer be able to be infected. That has been shown to not be true.
I would like to say that such crack pot and easily disputed ideas were quickly turned away, but they weren’t. The author of these ideas, Paul Alexander was able to slow policies that inhibited the government’s response to the virus. We also note that federal policy is still nowhere near as strict as it needs to be in order to seriously slow the virus.
State governmental policy in most states, especially states with Republican governors like Iowa, have fostered policies that do little to stop the virus.
As we come to the final stages of the worst presidency ever, the administration is not only not trying to slow anything, they are creating policies that will hamstring the Biden presidency from its start.
What is really problematic is that almost half of this country’s voters approved of such policies with their vote. While the virus will some day be conquered (soon we hope), voters who approve such policies will be with us for a long time.
ICYMI – Progress Iowa’s 8th Annual Holiday Party was last night but you can still catch the speeches below on 
Alert from Citizens for Community Improvement
I have never been sorry I took the time to listen to a 
