Category: Swarna Bharat Party

I do wish to suggest a difference in the way I’m looking at the issue. I’m not so bothered about how bad the virus is (these are debates for the future). The only question of interest is: what is the cheapest way to return to full normalcy?

All societies will ultimately achieve herd immunity – some at lower, others at a higher cost. Monckton (in the article you cite) is also clear that S.Korea is developing herd immunity but much more slowly. Btw, he also notes that that unreported cases could be up to 100 times more than the reported ones.

The way forward is simple: societies with full lockdown will take the longest to achieve herd immunity (and at highest cost), those with the most sophisticated (Swedish type) lockdowns will achieve it quickest and at lowest cost.

It would be best that instead of debating death rates, participants in this debate lay out their best plan for the end game (herd immunity).

I still believe that Sweden is on the top, with countries like Taiwan/S.Korea a close second. Further, the approaches being adopted in Taiwan, Korea are not within the capacity of the West to emulate. These nations have advanced at a level well beyond the capacity of the West. They learnt from their SARS experience and built up a fortress against viruses. E.g. Taiwan produces and distributes 10 million masks each day to its 23 million residents. USA can’t hope for that capacity even in the next 12 months. Taiwan is a well-oiled virus fighting machine. USA, UK or Australia have no clue what is going on.

So most Western nations (and definitely India) really don’t have many choices, unless they want to commit suicide and wipe out their entire economy.