Because we have the whole world on lockdown waiting for someone to tell us.
Unfortunately, without a vaccine or cure - there are only 2 approaches that work:
1) Eradication - like Taiwan. They have a tiny number of cases in full quarantine. Nobody comes on or off the island without being checked. So they are in total isolation.
But we can't do this.
2) Contact tracing - like Korea. They keep the virus under wraps by aggressively isolating cases, using social policy centered around contact tracing. Of course, they have masks, widespread testing, but a very asserted focus on contact management. FYI we have to get it down to low-levels before this policy can be implemented.
But it works.
Regular 'social distancing' does not do enough. Right now - we are coming out of our 'lockdowns' but the virus will likely just bounce back - why would it not? Other than the fact weather does play a role and it's getting warmer, there's no reason for the COVID growth to come back to where it was.
So either you stay away from other people - or - at least you consent to inform them if somehow you were near them, which requires contact tracing obviously with the addition of good operational capabilities there, it's not 'just an app'.
Shelter those above 65 and anyone with an underlying condition. (Of course anyone should stay home if they feel the need)
Everyone else back to life with social distancing and preventative measures in place (masks, no concerts etc)
Build immunity and slowly bring the rest of society back.
Sources: Go research. Look at the data we are way over doing it. Anything I post will be taken with a grain of salt anyway.
And that's with an estimated ~1/30th of the infections.
Based off the most liberal estimates of deaths directly related to the financial crisis, we're many multiples higher (est: 10,000+)[2] and a couple of day from being par with both direct, and indirect deaths related to stress and financial strife (assuming all the cancer patience died, which they did not) [3].
We're moving towards what you're suggesting, now that most countries have a serious testing infrastructure in place. Randomized testing, plus regular testing of the medial professionals tied with social distancing is what our near future hold. Most things open up to a limited extent, and we'll move from there. [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628 [3] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...
First - I would add - none of my detractors or 'downvoters' have provided any workable solution.
Even with 'widespread immunity' that was going undetected - for example, 20% of New Yorkers possibly infected, it still means about a 0.8% overall death rate.
Right now we 12K deaths in NYC (it will be 15K if no more infections due to death-lag in reporting) for the 1.8M already supposedly infected. This is about a 0.8% overall death rate.
It means about another 60K dead in NYC alone (the commenter below puts the number here as well)
This is beyond'acceptable risk'.
60K of NYC is a huge number, and it's equivalent to a few million Americans.
I do not think we're just going to give up on shelter-in-place and then hide our elderly and accept millions of Americans dying.
Again - the solution is already there Contact Tracing.
If you want to talk about 'facts' and 'data' consider Koreas numbers [1]
They are spectacular. 250 dead in a country of 24M people and they have COVID under control. Their economy is not locked-down.
They have scientifically demonstrated a workable solution, it involves community participation via contact tracing.
It's irresponsible for us to avoid proven solutions.
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-kore...
