The unprecedented policy of mass quarantine to “flatten the curve” is only prolonging the coronavirus pandemic, contends a veteran scholar of epidemiology.
The virus could be “exterminated” within weeks if people were allowed to lead normal lives and the vulnerable were sheltered until the virus passes, said Knut Wittkowski, Ph.D., the former head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at the Rockefeller University in New York City.
“But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time,” he explained. “And I don’t see a good reason for a respiratory disease to stay in the population longer than necessary.”
“But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time,” he explained.
I agree completely. However, you also get more people dying for lack of available medical resources. Younger people do die from this so we don't exactly know who should be isolated and who shouldn't.
Keep in mind some people who don't die from this still end up in the hospital for weeks. If the systems get overwhelmed, then they can't service people who suffer other life threatening conditions like heart attacks and accident victims and whatever else. So they end up dying because of the virus but but not from the virus directly.
