It's an Ill Wind

[John Young]

Deft analysis. Positive infection salutory to 
clear out senior royal and political and 
governmental and  military and finance and spies 
and media and intellectual and celebrities and 
predators and environmental damagers and drug 
pushers, allowing angelic ethical fair-minded 
under-60s to take over the reliquaries in hazmat 
gear without guillotining, merely shovel the 
disinfected carcasses into the Thames to be 
encased in plastic waste and frozen into revived 
icelands. Until boarded by circumnavigating polar 
bears with plastic sails sniffing fresh meat down south.

At 09:29 AM 3/14/2020, you wrote:
>2- It's an Ill Wind
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRc389TvG8
>
>So now we know: first, that the UK government is 
>actually deliberately trying to infect over 40 
>million UK citizens, and in doing so expecting, 
>on their figures, 400,000 deaths.
>
>The reason given for this is to develop "herd 
>immunity", where there are so many people who 
>have had the virus that there is nobody for 
>someone who later contracts it to give it to, as 
>everybody has already had it and is immune.
>
>
>But the Chinese didn't do that. They implemented 
>strong containment and stopped the virus dead. 
>They didn't "lessen the peak", they obliterated the peak.
>
>There is no reason why we can't do that too.
>
>But the Government insists on buying herd 
>immunity at the cost of at least 400,000 (more 
>likely a million [1]) deaths. Why?
>
>The question arises, what good would herd 
>immunity, bought at such a terrible cost in deaths, do?
>
>The reason given is that the Government believes 
>that COVID-19 will turn into a seasonal disease, 
>and herd immunity might protect us from it's return next year.
>
>There are three big problems with that - First, 
>we don't know that it will return at all. 
>Second, if it does return next year, it will 
>have mutated - and like flu, it is likely that 
>the herd immunity, so dearly bought, will not be 
>effective against next year's version, if it happens.
>
>There is also concern about people in China who 
>seem to have gotten the disease twice. We don't 
>know why that is, whether it is two different 
>strains of the virus (there are several hundred 
>known varieties of the COVID-19 virus, it 
>mutates fairly rapidly) or people getting the 
>disease twice - however in either case that 
>would lower the usefulness of any herd immunity.
>
>
>
>So, I don't see why the UK Government are killing 400,000 people.
>
>Apparently it isn't because the UK has a large 
>proportion of older people. Older people who 
>need extensive healthcare, expensive pensions, 
>who tie up a lot of wealth and property - of the 
>predicted 400,000 (million) deaths the vast majority would be of older people.
>
>This clearing away of unproductive and expensive 
>(and wealthy) older population would more than 
>balance the budget, releasing £10 billion per 
>year in state pensions, £20 billion per year in heathcare costs, and so on.
>
>It would stop the disease in the UK fairly 
>quickly, and it would be the cheapest option 
>(ignoring the actuarial but not-real-pounds cost of the deaths).
>
>It would release several hundred thousand 
>badly-needed homes (and cause a property price 
>crash; the UK needs about 1 million homes, which 
>is why UK property is so expensive) and would 
>provide a more balanced population pyramid.
>
>So for the UK as a nation it would not be a bad 
>thing (ignoring the deaths), and I fear some 
>politicians may think "Hey, it's just the useless oldies, who cares?".
>
>But no. There is probably a sensible reason we 
>don't implement strong confinement and stop the 
>virus in its tracks, rather than letting it have 
>its way. Unfortunately I don't know what that reason is.
>
>
>Peter Fairbrother
>
>
>[1] I calculate around a million deaths, but 
>that is a bit of a back-of-the envelope 
>calculation based on known death rates elsewhere 
>and comparative population age spreads. Exact 
>figures also depend on some assumptions about 
>things we do not know about the disease. I have 
>made what I think are reasonable assumptions. I 
>don't know how reasonable the Goverment's 
>assumptions are, or how they came up with the 400,000 figure.