The point is Rt. If Rt is above 1, and the disease has a degree of mortality similar to what it has now, then it means the case count will double at some rate. And ICUs will fill up, and people will start dying from things like broken legs and pneumonia from not being able to get sufficient care. Does that make sense? That's just what Rt > 1 means; case counts are doubling. If Rt is above 1, then if you don't want the disease to eat the world, something needs to happen to get Rt back below 1. If not, it will happen naturally, solely through natural immunity and unnecessary death.
So the goal simply needs to be to keep Rt below 1, or to knock it back below 1 before prevalance becomes dangerous and threatens ICUs.
But that doesn't necessarily mean lockdowns. If there's a spike but already a good level of immunity, it might just mean masks on public transportation for a couple of months, or people naturally choosing to go out to eat three fewer times a month, or whatever.
The measure of required mitigation depends entirely upon the circumstance in the moment. If Rt spikes a little, you don't need to do much. If it spikes a lot, you need to do more. But with enough vaccination, we might not ever need full lockdowns for covid again.
The point is Rt. If Rt is above 1, and the disease has a degree of mortality similar to what it has now, then it means the case count will double at some rate. And ICUs will fill up, and people will start dying from things like broken legs and pneumonia from not being able to get sufficient care. Does that make sense? That's just what Rt > 1 means; case counts are doubling. If Rt is above 1, then if you don't want the disease to eat the world, something needs to happen to get Rt back below 1. If not, it will happen naturally, solely through natural immunity and unnecessary death.
So the goal simply needs to be to keep Rt below 1, or to knock it back below 1 before prevalance becomes dangerous and threatens ICUs.
But that doesn't necessarily mean lockdowns. If there's a spike but already a good level of immunity, it might just mean masks on public transportation for a couple of months, or people naturally choosing to go out to eat three fewer times a month, or whatever.
The measure of required mitigation depends entirely upon the circumstance in the moment. If Rt spikes a little, you don't need to do much. If it spikes a lot, you need to do more. But with enough vaccination, we might not ever need full lockdowns for covid again.