Better to be proactive

Re: Are we mortgaging our future on an inexact science? Sharon Kirkey, April 8 Sharon Kirkey’s article misses the mark on two points. Models of future behaviour are, by their very nature, inexact reproductions of future events. These models are continually compared with actual results and they evolve and become more accurate. As a society, are we better off with inexact models and taking anticipatory actions, rather than waiting to see what happens and reacting after events ( often too late)? Being proactive sounds better.

Moreover, shutting down the economy has never been about saving the health- impaired lives of 80- year- olds. In Canada, and in countries around the world, social distancing is to flatten the curve to prevent the total collapse of our health- care systems. Look to Italy to see how close that came to happen — it’s not a pretty sight. Letting everyone get the virus is certainly the shortcut to developing herd immunity, but at what cost? Would it be fair if a critically injured 20- year- old accident victim couldn’t access the health system because it’s clogged with COVID- 19 patients? Denying health care to large groups of people because of an avoidable overload of the health-care system results in highly questionable societal and economic trade-offs.

Our politicians and health- care leaders are too politically correct to express it in these terms, but, once they are confident that the health- care system can cope with both a reduced normal workload, and critically ill COVID-19 patients, we will see a greater willingness to accept the societal costs of achieving herd immunity. That is when we will see a return to more normal societal and economic activity. Larry F. Chapman, Toronto