I personally don't believe that attempting to float the idea of herd immunity as a viable option (sans a viable and effective vaccine) is helpful or responsible either, but perhaps that's just me. It's worth recognizing that relatively early-on based on the very limited information a case could have been made for it. Based on how most countries reacted it was not a compelling case, but not a Flat-Earth situation either. From a news story today https://www.yahoo.com/news/parents-knowingly-sent-kids-coronavirus-170052665.html “The human behavior aspect of sending sick and positive children to school is not something we can control, and we never accounted for people completely disregarding basic health guidance,” Johnson said. “We have no tools left, and we just want everyone to be safe.” As much as I suggested caution above, any plan that didn't account for parents sending sick kids to school wasn't developed by anyone with normal school experience. There are any number of reasons it should have been easy to imagine parents sending kids anyway. A little cynicism about human behavior and rule breaking is useful when trying to make plans. At some point the power is simply out of your hands, though, and you are in the situation then of depending on others to take the similar precautions you have chosen to take. But due to selfishness, resistance to change, a sense of entitlement, or what many would call "freedom", that hasn't happened in the U.S. You are correct in saying that the people making the plans should very well have planned on a number of people not following the guidelines. But I totally get what Mr. Johnson is saying above, though. Like the old worn-out cliche says, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What scares me about the majority of the herd immunity truthers, though, is that they seem to be advocating that society take no safety precautions whatsoever, basically taking the "whatever happens, happens" philosophy many are preaching and injecting it with steroids. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have no problem with the idea of becoming infected with COVID, and possibly infecting and killing others, as that is simply "nature running its course." I am never going to believe in that line of thinking, though.