Herd immunity is this pandemic’s exit route, but passing the moral buck over to citizens is a dangerous strategy
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When at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic China placed a cordon sanitaire around Wuhan and then quickly extended it to eight other Chinese cities, placing 45 million people under lockdown, the immediate response was that it could never happen here. Even though quarantines have been employed in Europe since the 14th century, few of us thought the citizens of mature western democracies could be persuaded to accept similar restrictions. It seemed like a measure from the dark ages.
That imaginative failure arguably lay at the heart of Britain’s decision to pursue a herd immunity strategy during the early weeks of the pandemic by letting the virus run through the population, rather than locking society down tightly in an effort to suppress infections and prevent hospitals being swamped.
