[lambdaba]

I know it certainly appears like a suboptimal strategy, but it assumes that the measures did indeed do what they were expected, that's contentious (we can discuss why, but I think it's obvious).

In a risk-benefit analysis, it leaves future (speculative) advances in treatment VS acquiring herd immunity as quickly as possible and with minimal actual damage, for this it makes sense to maximize exposure for the less at risk.

Also, the summer is a better season to get infected, at least because of generally better immune system function (because of better vitamin d status).

[__blockcipher__]

Not just Vitamin D, but to a lesser extent nitric oxide as well.

Anyway to state your excellent point in a different way: “contain until vaccine” is a strategy based around a temporally unbounded future event. When has it ever made sense to bet the farm on a highly uncertain future event?

This world would be so much better off if we never knew that SARS-2 existed and therefore did not engage in any artificial suppression of natural transmission.

[tenuousemphasis]

Yeah much better for hospital ICUs to be overrun with patients across the entire world all at once. Great thinking.

[__blockcipher__]

Hospitals/ICUs being overrun in the United States is not realistic. I'm not equipped to discuss the medical capacity of other countries, but Sweden did fine.