Rooting for the wrong side. Written at the beginning of the pandemic

I have over the years played out this scenario many times and dreamt of a post-apocalyptic world.

In books and movies, the writers have used the virus or alien invasion or natural disaster to describe what life would be like when all the elements that define our society are torn apart.
Its probably just me but I often find myself disappointed when the bomb squad comes out of the building saying it was just a hoax. There was no bomb in the classroom. I know it makes me a really bad person because at some level I would have loved to have seen it all go up in a Big bright mushroom.
So while watching the progress of this virus. Following the stats, it's hard to hide the fact that when I see the exponential growth of infection across the globe, I am secretly rooting for COVID 19. I know it will probably be a different story when I am in quarantine, and unable to get essential life-giving medication. For now, I see the virus tearing through the first world and levelling the powerful and the proud. I accept that if, or when it gets to us in Africa it will be tragic. The devastation amongst the poor immuno-compromised will be epic and on a scale, we can't currently comprehend.
The two areas that need some thought are firstly how hectic will it get during the worst part, and what the legacy of Covid 19 will be.
Any deep dive on COVID-19 should cover the facts as we know them, then project the future as the virus runs its course and hopefully burns itself out.
We have by now come to terms with a future where every country in the world will be infected and that the contagion is unstoppable.
All the measures of containment and "social distancing" are only designed to slow down the progress so that our health care systems don't get overwhelmed with the first wave. The pretty word being used for this is to "flatten the curve" which means it's going to happen, we don't get to change that outcome, but we are able to spread the infection over a longer period. The longer we are able to draw this out, the easier it will be on the health services. Like pulling off a band-aid, very slowly.
If the spread is allowed to happen at its natural pace the entire population will be infected within a month. All the isolation and social distancing measures in conjunction with Happy birthday's every few hours will result in the same penetration levels but over a longer period. Perhaps three to four months. The ultimate outcomes of both will be the same, except we need to slow down the pace for our health system to keep up.
COVID-19 is going to get around, and 80 per cent of the world is going to get it.
This is something that most have come to accept as a reality.
We in South Africa are particularly exposed as one-third of our country are immuno-compromised. The death toll here will be astronomical. Covid 19 has chosen a particularly bad time to come to us.
Our failing airline that was about to layoff half its staff under business rescue will not survive the wave of cancellations. As fewer people travel locally and abroad they will find all the plans to rescue the business will need revision.
The economy had already tipped into an official recession before the COVID crisis hit and this global pandemic that is set to destroy solid well-run economies worldwide will leave ours in tatters.
When we go through the worst of the infections all blue-collar work will cease.
Food and medical essentials will be scarce. Most of the scarcities will be as a result of panic buying. A self-fulfilling prophesy if ever there was one. We imagine shortages and buy up all the stock, and in doing so create the shortages.
A frightened populace will turn on the illegal immigrants and we will have incidents of xenophobia amongst the poor.
Essential services will breakdown and as a result, there will be a spike in lawlessness.
All mosques and places of worship will not be available to give comfort to the families that will be torn apart by death and sickness.
The garbage will pile up and we will experience extended outages of electricity and water as the support structures unravel from not having enough skilled people available to run and to repair ageing systems that need constant attention.
False prophets will claim to have the cure and will and up giving hope to the gullible while taking advantage of their grief.
The streets will at some stage be devoid of cars or all movement.
Over the weeks that follow we will find small mobs of young people roaming the streets in search of food and supplies. These foragers will be seen by the poor as their only hope and by the battened-down middle class as raiding parties. When skirmishes break out and we have faced horror stories of the desperate masses fighting to survive, the government will intervene and send in troops to patrol the streets to maintain order.
The troops themselves will not be a welcome sight as they will represent the first time in a long time that South Africans were exposed to the "dogs of war".
All this in the first few months from the initial contact.
Best Case Scenario.
This story could end with 75 to 80% of the public getting better and going back to work. They would mourn our losses and get on with life.
Worst Case Scenario.One-third of our population who are immuno-compromised join the ranks of the over 60-year-olds who are at maximum risk of mortality.
The country has to face up to a potential death toll of millions.
Even if this is an aggressive estimate one could use half the above number and arrive at the same end game.
In this new South Africa, much like the world after Thanos snaps his fingers, those who remain are "unable" to get on with their lives.
I often play these "what if" scenarios to see how far I can extrapolate the current trends into the future. This is one of the times when I hope, and pray that I am wrong.
M Parak 

Mar 2020

After I wrote this, I began to find strange statistics out of China. In a country of over a billion people we were seeing no new infections and it meant that they had somehow beat the odds. From what I knew (which is dangerous) I could not reconcile the sudden drop in China. 

The only possibility was, what is  being refered to as 'herd immunity'.

The theory goes like this. 

If over 60 percent of the population are immune. Infected and recovered. The virus will not be able to find a susceptible host and will die before its able to propagate. At 60 percent of exposure points the virus would meet immunity and it would statically die before it was able to touch the 40 percent who were not immune. This approach required tough love and lots of infections. 

China it appears, logged 100k infections, but what if these are only  the 15 percent that required hospitalisation. The bulk of the infections, meaning 85 percent were asked to quarantine themselves at home. Those people have survived and have immunity and are the reason that the hot spots have herd immunity. 

This is the only way that I can find to  make sense of the numbers.