Worth noting there have been multiple flu strains throughout modern history which have been more deadly than COVID has been so far. Aside from 1918 Spanish Flu

Worth noting there have been multiple flu strains throughout modern history which have been more deadly than COVID has been so far. Aside from 1918 Spanish Flu there was also the 1958 Asian flu which killed ~2 million. COVID is also less deadly than even an average flu for about half of people who get it, but many times more deadly than the average flu in about a quarter of cases. The bottom line is unless you have a set of sustainable measures which can keep R below 1, then you’re back to just bending the curve to keep hospital capacity available. Realistically I think that locations that have a very low herd immunity percentage cannot be successful in keeping R below 1 without intensive shutdown and lockdown measures, which of course must be sustained indefinitely. However once a certain level of herd immunity is reached in a community, a more sustainable set of measures can be enough, in concert with the innate benefits of herd immunity, to keep R below 1. I believe this explains the current dichotomy we see in places like NY and MA versus FL and CA. It’s not a question of “MA does better wearing masks than CA” it’s a matter of masks plus MA’s herd immunity keeps MA below 1 while masks with the lower herd immunity in CA keeps them above 1. You don’t have to be much above or below that R=1, after 30 days the results compound either way.