[2006alum]

This would be the safest and easiest way for people to resume normal life. In theory, this was the UK's herd immunity strategy before the UK realized (a day later and a dollar short) that without spreading the curve, herd immunity requires culling a fair chunk of the herd in the process.

You don't think Boris & Co. realized that out of the gate?

Based on how quickly the UK completely reversed strategies, as well as the available reporting about the process by which they did it, no, Mick, I don't:

From one story on that process:

Political aides tacitly criticised other countries who had taken more dramatic steps, claiming Britain was being “guided by the science” rather than politics.
Towards the end of last week, some ministers and political aides at the top of the government were still arguing that the original strategy of home isolation of suspect cases — but no real restrictions on wider society — was correct, despite almost every other European country taking a much tougher approach, and increasing alarm among SAGE experts.

The thought of months or even a year of social distancing was simply not feasible, some in Johnson’s team still thought at that point. They continued to privately defend the controversial “herd immunity” approach outlined to the media by Vallance, even as other aides scrambled to claim the UK had never considered it to be policy. And there was fury behind the scenes among members of Johnson’s team at the likes of Rory Stewart and Jeremy Hunt, who had been publicly saying the government had got it wrong.

But data from Italy — presented to the government before it was published by experts at Imperial College on Monday — changed all that. Their report confirmed the earlier fears of the epidemiologists who had been calling for more drastic action. It showed that the NHS would indeed soon be overwhelmed if the UK’s “mitigation” strategy continued. The country had to move right away to a “suppression” approach with much more social distancing and restrictions on normal life, Imperial concluded.

Vallance and Johnson accepted the chilling findings and the prime minister finally advised social distancing on Monday. The experts who had been demanding this for days wondered what the lost time would mean in terms of deaths.

Not to mention public reversals like this:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1241089612296212493?s=20[/tweet]

[2006alum]

This would be the safest and easiest way for people to resume normal life. In theory, this was the UK's herd immunity strategy before the UK realized (a day later and a dollar short) that without spreading the curve, herd immunity requires culling a fair chunk of the herd in the process.

You don't think Boris & Co. realized that out of the gate?

Based on how quickly the UK completely reversed strategies, as well as the available reporting about the process by which they did it, no, Mick, I don't:

From one story on that process:

Political aides tacitly criticised other countries who had taken more dramatic steps, claiming Britain was being “guided by the science” rather than politics.
Towards the end of last week, some ministers and political aides at the top of the government were still arguing that the original strategy of home isolation of suspect cases — but no real restrictions on wider society — was correct, despite almost every other European country taking a much tougher approach, and increasing alarm among SAGE experts.

The thought of months or even a year of social distancing was simply not feasible, some in Johnson’s team still thought at that point. They continued to privately defend the controversial “herd immunity” approach outlined to the media by Vallance, even as other aides scrambled to claim the UK had never considered it to be policy. And there was fury behind the scenes among members of Johnson’s team at the likes of Rory Stewart and Jeremy Hunt, who had been publicly saying the government had got it wrong.

But data from Italy — presented to the government before it was published by experts at Imperial College on Monday — changed all that. Their report confirmed the earlier fears of the epidemiologists who had been calling for more drastic action. It showed that the NHS would indeed soon be overwhelmed if the UK’s “mitigation” strategy continued. The country had to move right away to a “suppression” approach with much more social distancing and restrictions on normal life, Imperial concluded.

Vallance and Johnson accepted the chilling findings and the prime minister finally advised social distancing on Monday. The experts who had been demanding this for days wondered what the lost time would mean in terms of deaths.

Not to mention public reversals like this:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1241089612296212493?s=20[/tweet]