Wrong.
Reducing the rate of infection increases the death total because it keeps the epidemic from ending.
If that seems counter-intuitive to you, then just read history.
For example, how General Washington ended Smallpox by deliberately spreading it.
By the way, inoculation means deliberate infection, as vaccines were not invented until about 20 years later.
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According to the U.S. Library of Congress's Science, Technology, and Business Division, the smallpox inoculations began Jan. 6, 1777, for all of Washington's forces who came through the then-capital of Philadelphia, and through Morristown, New Jersey, following the Battle of Princeton.
Smallpox is a potentially fatal disease that starts with fever and vomiting and an outbreak of ulcers in the mouth and a skin rash. The skin rash turns into highly contagious fluid-filled blisters. The fatality rate was very high.
Inoculations were far more primitive - and dangerous - than today's vaccinations. The most common method was to cut a person's skin and rub the minor incision with a thread or cloth contaminated with a less-virulent version of smallpox, which in this case was a strain known as "variola."
At the time, most English troops were immune to variola, and their immunity gave them an "enormous advantage against the vulnerable colonists," according to the library. By contrast, less than a quarter of the American colonial troops had ever had the virus.
Washington knew a mass inoculation campaign could backfire and might cause more disease than it prevented. He also feared the mandatory inoculations would harm recruitment.
Nevertheless, after weighing the odds, Washington informed Congress on Feb. 5, 1777, of his plans for a mass inoculation. The general's plans contraindicated a 1776 proclamation by the Continental Congress prohibiting inoculations.
A Feb. 6 letter to Dr. William Shippen from Washington states: "Finding the smallpox to be spreading much and fearing that no precaution can prevent it from running through the whole of our Army, I have determined that the troops shall be inoculated. This expedient may be attended with some inconvenience and some disadvantages but yet I trust its consequences will have the most happy effects. Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence, we have more to dread from it than from the sword of the enemy."
Throughout February, the inoculations across the entire force were carried out in the model of the initial efforts in Morristown and Philadelphia.
Washington's strategy was largely successful.
"The isolated infections that sprung up among Continental regulars during the southern campaign failed to incapacitate a single regiment," the Library reported.
....}
George Washington’s tactics included directing the first mass military inoculations
health.mil
There is a place for masks, but that is only if a pathogen is so lethal that one goes the full quarantine route.
But full quarantine ends any epidemic in less than a month.
And we decided early on not to do a full quarantine for covid.
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