Over half a century after the Cork epidemic, the British government and its medical advisers find themselves in something of the same dilemma.
They clearly considered “herd immunity”, and going down the same road as Sweden, but they jumped away from the idea when it met with a fiercely negative public reaction.
"Our aim," said the chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Valance on 13 March, ten day before lockdown, “is to build up some degree of herd immunity whilst protecting the most vulnerable".
Read more Of course, protecting the most vulnerable turned out to be exactly what the government did not do as mass deaths in the care homes demonstrated.
Countries around the world were likewise soon denying that they were pursuing “herd immunity” as the phrase became a synonym for state-sponsored euthanasia.
Leaving aside the victims in the care homes, critics pointed out that, in addition to those that died, many would be permanently disabled, nor was there in any case, any guarantee that mass infection would confer long term immunity.
The dynamics of epidemics, their lethal ebbs and flows, are unpredictable and complicated involving more than a fixed proportion of people getting the illness.
Yet six months from “herd immunity” being pilloried worldwide as the equivalent of poisoning the wells, Britain may covertly or by default may be adopting just such a policy.
The reason for this creeping volte-face is that while “herd immunity” may or may not be achievable, the alternative policy of lockdown looks more and more like a bad bargain, bringing economic devastation in return for a temporary retreat of the epidemic.
In reality, it has been in “panic mode,” and thanks to its bumbling incompetence, there is plenty to panic about.
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