By: Annie Xu
A group of “professionals” from the world’s most prestigious schools gave the US an awful COVID-19 solution. They called it “herd immunity.” Mayo Clinic states that herd immunity is, “when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease.” In theory, this means that it makes the disease hard to spread, keeping the people who are not immune safe. With the right execution and procedures taken, herd immunity is a very effective way to keep a massive population safe.
The main reason behind using herd immunity to get rid of COVID-19 was that, because people would be naturally infected, they would naturally build immunity. In a big enough population, with enough people with immunity, you can keep the whole community safe. However, Paul Alexander, who was an expert in the Health and Human Services Department during Trump’s term, said, “infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk.” He claimed that the young people of the generation should be used to develop herd immunity for the older folks. However, this idea didn’t work in practice because managing over 300 million people is a challenging task for the government. Controlling who gets infected and who doesn’t is almost impossible.
Why was this outlandish proposal accepted? Political agendas. With Alexander’s idea of herd immunity, this meant that people would be put out of lockdown. This went along with the right-winged ideas of the time. Many right-wing politicians wanted people out of lockdown because of how much the economy was struggling due to the pandemic causing people to stay home. It is clear now, a couple years later, that herd immunity was not achieved.
Jonathan Howard, who is a neurologist at New York University, said, “it’s unbelievable that while doctors like myself were working to treat sick COVID patients, begging people to stay at home and be safe, there was another group of doctors working at cross-currents to us – prominent doctors wanting to purposely infect unvaccinated young people with the promise that herd immunity would arrive in a couple of months.”
Due to the belief in herd immunity from many right-wing politicians and scientists, many people didn’t follow proven ways to stop COVID-19, including social distancing, wearing face coverings, and getting the vaccine.
According to the CDC, over 17,400 lives of those under 20 have been taken. Around 245,000 children have lost a parent or both parents to COVID-19. Howard remarked, “In 2019 you would have been considered a quack if you suggested that the best way to get rid of a virus is to spread the virus, but that became mainstream and influenced politicians at the highest levels.”