Herd

With just three weeks remaining before the floodgates of tourism are opened, there still is no plan concerning the screening for “super-duper corona.” The mayor and council of Honolulu have petitioned the governor of Hawai’i to either postpone the target date or increase the screening requirements to include two tests taken per visitor within a span of a week.

There really is no reason to delineate on any of the considerations because the plans are all flawed. As previously discussed in Notes, the quarantine is a farce. And, the whole idea of testing has become an even bigger joke given the demand for testing across empire has severely depleted the stocks of test kits. And, tourists will be given last priority for testing.

The Federal unemployment supplement of $600 per week expires The eviction moratorium ends at the end of the month. Many of the local businesses are now teetering on closure. Ultimately, the decision and the plan will be driven by purely economic interests.

In the meantime, there is reason to believe that “community spread” of “super-duper corona” is now occurring. Without proper mitigation, the number of infections will increase rapidly. So, the prospect of restoring the full “lockdown” is real. Yet, what does that accomplish when there are 1.5 million people here with no immunity?

Overall, there really is no way to avoid the inevitable. “Super-duper corona” will continue to spread until it infects nearly all of the global population. The “lockdown” only “buys time,” but ... for what? Only when a significant portion of the population has achieved some kind of immunity will there be any hope of controlling or eradicating the pathogen. That’s the crux of what is crudely referred to as “herd immunity.” As stated in Notes, some people will fall ill, most will recover, some will die.