“Herd immunity” includes the acceptance of a certain mortality rate, which will vary by pathogen. This is exactly what happens in wild animal populations. In captive, production animal populations, massive culling (killing) is carried out to stop outbreaks. Recent examples include foot and mouth disease in the U.K. and Newcastle disease in poultry in California.

There are many significant issues with the “flattening the curve” concept.

1. The area under the curve, the number of infected people and even deaths, may not be significantly different. Plus, right now it’s pretty much a modeling exercise.
2. The assumption is that the virus somehow just goes away. Why? It could be just as likely that instead of a flattened curve it is a bunch of spikes.
3. Without knowing the population’s exposure rate, we cannot know when to ease up on restrictions. We need a blood ANTIBODY test that is widely deployed to determine the extent of exposure and “herd immunity”.
4. Vaccination in the face of immunity can blunt the effectiveness of the vaccine and lead to another spike in cases down the road. Another reason to deploy an antibody test.
5. While the focus is correctly on the immediate situation, our scientific and medical leaders need to be preparing for what to do if we actually do flatten the curve.