Paul Frijters and Gigi Foster are wrong

Both Paul and Gigi are to the forefront of adopting herd immunity as a policy not  lockdowns.
This can be seen here.
Why are they wrong?
Well to start with they are allowing for lives to end for that is what occurs in herd immunity. That is the philosophical answer but let us ]now examine the practical.

• You cannot adopt herd immunity. People and organisations have legal obligations. hospitals cannot say to those with corona virus go away. Employers cannot allow those with the virus to be at work. they are but two examples. Then we have people's behaviour. Will they willingly accept getting the virus? I think not.
• Thus the choice is between a formal lockdown or an informal lockdown which Sweden had. Let us be perfectly clear. Sweden did not adopt herd immunity. People wore masks and used social distancing. Indeed google statistics showed little difference between people in Germany and Sweden. Having said that we should not attempt to copy Sweden as I have shown.
• Suicides were widely predicted to rise like a rocket as they did in our previous two recessions. They did not. This is possibly because of the large government payments.
• When will the hospital sector be under pressure so crowding out occurs. In a lockdown when those having the virus are falling or when there is no lockdown and those with the virus are rising exponentially.  Yep you guessed right but Fritjers and Foster have it the other way round.
• Does herd immunity work? You can get the virus more than once.
• What about the benefits of the lockdown. I will take but one. The flu season is here but hardly anyone has it. Guess why

I should have added another thing.

Foster thinks you can have a policy where there is a large campaign so people understand certain people are vulnerable to the virus and so will be protected.

A few problems with this.

1. This sounds similar to what Sweden did and that was an  unmitigated disaster.
2. People in Victoria must have surely know this but the Aged care industry was too an  unmitigated disaster
3. such a campaign has mixed messages which always dissipates the message

Herd Immunity means at least 70% of the population getting the virus.

That means assuming 1% die ( very conservative given the pressure on hospitals for a start) 175,000 people die of the virus and there is no guarantee the economy does not tank!

I agree thus with John Quiggin