Running With the Herd

We aren’t cattle, sheep, or wildebeest, but as fellow mammals, we all can be considered part of a herd. The coronavirus has introduced discussion of the term “herd immunity” and how to get there. In Sweden, rather than suffering under the strict limited-contact measures adopted by most countries to fight the spread of the disease, citizens are allowed to interact fairly normally. Yes, more people will get sick, but the idea is that if up to 70 percent of Swedes contract the disease and recover from it, the herd will eventually develop immunity to COVID.

While the death rate in Sweden is higher than in the rest of Europe, and the World Health Organization has not yet concluded that people recovering from the disease are immune, the Swedish model sounds attractive. So why aren’t we doing it?

Well, as one of our own top  epidemiologists has pointed out, only 30 percent of the Swedish population has been infected so far, and they have a long way to go before herd immunity sets in. Here, we are doing what we can under the circumstances to limit death until a vaccine comes, which will allow the inoculation of members of our own herd at a level necessary to achieve immunity.

Disease is a natural process, like the weather. When the rain falls, there are two ways to go: getting wet and waiting for the sun to dry us off after the storm clears, or seeking shelter. We Americans are seeking that shelter in the form of accepting restrictions and looking forward to the quick development of treatments and a vaccine.

We may be saving lives with this approach, and life is precious. But what if you have lost your job, can’t pay bills, and you and your family may have to join the herd of the homeless? You have a life, all right, but there isn’t much quality to it.

The thing about rain is that it falls on the just and the unjust, as is often said. The coronavirus respects no boundaries or social status, or red and blue. It has no morals and doesn’t read the Constitution. There aren’t any haves or have-nots,  just catch and catch-nots. It gets increasingly hard for people to hold on to lofty principles when they can’t eat, and that is as dangerous as the disease.

As I have said in previous posts, there is a tipping point coming, where a level of risk has to be accepted to keep the economy from going off the cliff. It actually has already done that; we are simply clinging on to one of those branches growing from a crevice in the rock face that keeps us from falling all the way down. It is not  about an either/or choice, life versus the economy. It is going to have to be about both.