[pw201]

Quoting the site: "This reduces total cases! Even if you don't get R < 1, reducing R still saves lives, by reducing the 'overshoot' above herd immunity. Lots of folks think "Flatten The Curve" spreads out cases without reducing the total. This is impossible in any Epidemiology 101 model. But because the news reported "80%+ will be infected" as inevitable, folks thought total cases will be the same no matter what. Sigh."

What I said: "temporarily reducing the R number (lockdowns, distancing, masks) reduces the overshoot in the total number of people who get the disease (some proportion of which will die)."

How are these "completely different"?

[nickthemagicman]

The R value is only reduced while extreme measures are active.

It will go back to its normal r value one society returns to normal.

There's no avoiding society returning to normal as people need jobs to pay rent and buy food.

[pw201]

The R is reduced while any effective measures are active. The playable sim for Scenario 1 has them active while there's blue shading over the graph, deactivating them once herd immunity is reached in that sim. In that case, compared to scenario 0 (do nothing), fewer people have been exposed so fewer people die. So it is not true to say, as you did, that "Youre are going to have the same number of deaths sooner or later as long as the hospitals aren't overwhelmed."

> There's no avoiding society returning to normal as people need jobs to pay rent and buy food.

You've moved the goalposts, but even so, the later sims suggest other things that can be done with less invasive measures like test and trace, wearing masks and social distancing. These don't prevent people doing jobs. They do decrease the number of people who die.