What you described (isolating older people but not younger people) seemed to be the approach of the UK but it looks like political pressure might be changing that and they will close schools and so forth. Herd immunity won't develop if everyone is at home.

It seems like their current plan is to do what everyone else is doing, after wasting a lot of time.

> People who are elderly or have health conditions that put them at high risk could isolate themselves for the next several months while the virus makes its way through the population... High risk individuals have a personal responsibility to isolate and protect themselves.

What people don't seem to get is that this was best-practice even before COVID-19. Influenza also disproportionately affects people with high-risk health profiles and there are millions of cases in the US every year, already, with thousands to tens of thousands of deaths.

The problem is, lots of GPs and teachers are in the 'high risk' category.

For teachers in OECD countries I found this chart: https://4cdn.hu/kraken/image/upload/s--n8f4dn-h--/c_limit,w_...

For GPs in Hungary I found this: https://4cdn.hu/kraken/image/upload/s--HqWJo4dH--/7Qfxe7y7fM...

I agree this is exactly the right approach. The goal is to flatten the curve, not try to obliterate it. We're not going to eradicate this virus without a vaccine, so we have to aim for transmission rates that don't overwhelm healthcare capacity. Keeping the virus away from vulnerable populations helps that significantly.

In the UK and Colombia (and maybe elsewhere) there are mandatory quarantines only for the elderly. I can see this being tried in other Western nations if blanket quarantines go on too long.

“Flatten the curve” is trendy but the graph everyone is sharing is just made up. It’s a nice visual aid but that’s all it is.

What if we all shelter in place but hospitals end up overwhelmed anyway? That seems like a real possibility and it kind of makes the argument irrelevant.

If we didn’t “flatten the curve” enough to get the imaginary hump below the imaginary dotted line, then the benefits of “shelter in place” are going to end up being a lot less valuable.

"What if we all shelter in place but hospitals end up overwhelmed anyway? That seems like a real possibility and it kind of makes the argument irrelevant."

There aren't just two modes: Hospitals OK and Hospitals Overwhelmed. The idea behind flattening the curve is to reduce the burden on the hospitals to whatever degree is possible. How is it "irrelevant" if a hospital is 200% over capacity versus 500% over capacity? The people who would die in the worst-case scenario but not in the "flattened" scenario would probably think it is extremely relevant.

This assumes that the virus doesn't mutate quickly enough that herd immunity and vaccines won't be very effective; it also assumes that the UK prediction of a bad winter resurgence won't happen.

Otherwise, what on earth is the strategy? Flatten the curve only to have an explosion later?