Wasn’t this what all of the “flatten the curve” messaging was about in March? Yes. The reason to slow things down is to avoid overwhelming the health care system.

Okay I may have phrased it a bit too bluntly.

But if you're talking about infecting a large part of the population deliberately then it seems to me you should try to do it as quickly as possible because isolating the vulnerable part of society from the rest is not a sustainable situation.

And well, if we're talking about infecting a large part of society anyway then health and human lives are apparently already expendable to some extent.

I guess if herd immunity is your best option you want to do it as quickly as you can without overwhelming things.

Which is why the “Lock down hard to flatten the curve” thing never really made sense to me. If you prevent all transmission you’ll just drag out the pain. I thought cases are just going to shoot back up when you open so what’s the point?

(Turns out I was wrong though. Delaying cases was very valuable. People getting sick now are much more likely to survive.)

One reason to drag it out is so that you don't overwhelm the healthcare system.