Anthony Fauci’s announcement that he will leave his government job at the end of this calendar year invites retrospection. The following is the text of a piece I wrote and distributed in March of 2020.
The Opposite of the Right COVID-19 Strategy
We are doing the opposite of the right things. Everyone and all levels of government should be focused on at-risk populations.
The current approach is yet another display of human hubris. Nothing other than natural processes is going to end the spread of the COVID-19 virus through uninfected portions of the world population. Perhaps it could have been stopped in a relatively small area of China, but it wasn’t, so that is not relevant. A viable strategy for a manageable and defined geographic area is not a strategy for the world.
I understand that the objective is to reduce (actually defer) stress on healthcare infrastructure and resources. However, only a tiny percentage of the population will require access to that infrastructure or require significant resources. Therefore, the strategy should be protecting or treating, to the extent reasonably possible, high risk populations. Healthcare infrastructure access should be a matter of triage. Apply therapeutic and life-saving resources to individuals who want it and who are reasonably likely to survive. Those who do not want it or are most likely to succumb should receive
palliative care, which need not be in a healthcare facility.
One result of such a strategy would be that this unusually communicable virus will spread though the population very rapidly. The sooner that happens the sooner the recovered
immune population will be sufficiently large that the virus will collapse and be reduced to a seasonal, manageable phenomenon like influenza.
I am also aware of the mutation risk – that the virus will mutate to become much more lethal. The best way to increase the probability of that happening is to prolong the time
during which it is spreading, maximizing the opportunity for natural random mutation to produce the deadliest pathogen. That is, the best strategy for producing the most feared
result is to do exactly what we are doing.
The current strategy also will do the most damage for the longest time to the weakest economies and to the most vulnerable portions of all economies. Government responses
to economic risk, as always, are most likely in the end, to increase the likelihood of economic Armageddon. Government responses are also, without exception, likely to
damage those least able to absorb it.
I am 72 years old and in good health. Doubtless it is much easier to say than do, but I believe it is much better for me to contract a virus that, while surely unpleasant, I am almost certain to survive, than for some multiple of one to be unable to go to work and provide for a family.
Charles H. Troe
March 21, 2020
