‘What people are trying to do is flatten the curve. I don’t really know why’>

Kurt Wittkowski, Ph.D. (video screenshot)

The unprecedented policy of mass quarantine to "flatten the curve" is only prolonging the coronavirus pandemic, contends a veteran scholar of epidemiology.

The virus could be "exterminated" within weeks if people were allowed to lead normal lives and the vulnerable were sheltered until the virus passes, said Knut Wittkowski, Ph.D., the former head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at the Rockefeller University in New York City.

"[W]hat people are trying to do is flatten the curve. I don’t really know why," he said in an interview with The Press and The Public Project that was featured by The College Fix.

"But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time," he explained. "And I don't see a good reason for a respiratory disease to stay in the population longer than necessary."

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Wittkowski said the only thing that stops respiratory diseases is herd immunity.

Herd immunity happens when a large percentage of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, which stops its spread.

"About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children," he said.

"So, it's very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible," said Wittkowski.

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