Then what's the point in sheltering in place?

Cronus and his new Central Park hansom service, reporting for duty

NYC health official: everyone in the city should assume they’ve been exposed to Hu Flu.

New York officials have effectively stopped trying to trace COVID-19 cases — saying everyone should assume they have already come into contact with the potentially deadly virus, according to an alarming report.

They stated that the virus is likely so wide-spread that tracing the number of infections is redundant — while warning that the city could be hurt until at least late fall, according to the report.

“Everyone in New York should assume that they have been in contact with COVID 19,” a read-out at the conference call said, according to Foreign Policy.

“Interviews with confirmed cases and contact tracing is not a good use of our resources when the virus is widespread,” they admitted, according to the report.

“This means that all individuals should assume that they have had some contact with the virus and practice maximum-possible social distancing; most cases will be mild and medical care should only be sought in urgent, worsening, or vulnerable cases,” the officials warned, according to the read-out.

“Testing is now less important — the danger of transmission is much higher as many people have now been exposed and the majority of people will only have mild symptoms,” they warned, according to Foreign Policy.

The authorities could only say they were “hopeful that exposure to COVID will make people immune,” conceding it was “too early to say definitely.”

I don’t mean to be glib, or unduly fatalistic, but if we’ve all been exposed, and the flu is as contagious as described, and there is no available vaccine against it, is there any reason to continue to hide from others, instead of just assuming we’re all infected and going about our business? Put another way, if practice makes perfect, but nobody’s perfect, why practice?