Interesting discussion of the second wave & herd immunity problem, but I find that this article mostly repeats what has already circulated so much in the mainstream media. Maybe not a bad thing.
I think the UK gov is a bit confused too. My understanding is it comes from the vaccine approach where when most of the population is immune, the disease can no longer spread as easily through the population.
The issue I see is that trying to build up herd immunity in a population during a pandemic merely puts older adults at risk, you have to get Covid-19 to become immune and tons of at-risk people would also get sick with far worse outcomes than the under 40 crew.
The reason it works with vaccines is that you build herd immunity without taking the full brunt of the disease, most people are vaccinated young when their immune system is more fit so the baseline for immunity is created in a stable, safe way. Building herd immunity with the actual disease and not an attenuated virus (one that has been weakened or is just the empty shell) is madness.
Sure, I'm 33 and I wouldn't mind getting Covid. I know my odds and would be happy to build antibodies, but I don't want my mother anywhere near it nor do I want to risk carrying it to her.
It's like they're hoping everyone will get it and recover but forgetting 10% of their older adults could (or would) be casualties.
Update (3/17/2020):
I should clarify…herd immunity works bc when most of a population is immune it is much harder for a disease to spread, the 6 degrees of separation we think of in a population where a disease could jump around gets blocked by immune people. It’s like a game of telephone but 90% of the players are wearing noise-canceling headphones (immunity), the message (disease) can't get past them to the remaining people without headphones on.
Same here! Are they somehow hoping people would all get it and immediately have all the anti bodies after they recover? And what about the ones that don’t have the immune system to fight it off? It’s puzzling
Interesting discussion of the second wave & herd immunity problem, but I find that this article mostly repeats what has already circulated so much in the mainstream media. Maybe not a bad thing.
I'm trying to understand what this 'herd immunity' thing really means.
I think the UK gov is a bit confused too. My understanding is it comes from the vaccine approach where when most of the population is immune, the disease can no longer spread as easily through the population.
The issue I see is that trying to build up herd immunity in a population during a pandemic merely puts older adults at risk, you have to get Covid-19 to become immune and tons of at-risk people would also get sick with far worse outcomes than the under 40 crew.
The reason it works with vaccines is that you build herd immunity without taking the full brunt of the disease, most people are vaccinated young when their immune system is more fit so the baseline for immunity is created in a stable, safe way. Building herd immunity with the actual disease and not an attenuated virus (one that has been weakened or is just the empty shell) is madness.
Sure, I'm 33 and I wouldn't mind getting Covid. I know my odds and would be happy to build antibodies, but I don't want my mother anywhere near it nor do I want to risk carrying it to her.
It's like they're hoping everyone will get it and recover but forgetting 10% of their older adults could (or would) be casualties.
I should clarify…herd immunity works bc when most of a population is immune it is much harder for a disease to spread, the 6 degrees of separation we think of in a population where a disease could jump around gets blocked by immune people. It’s like a game of telephone but 90% of the players are wearing noise-canceling headphones (immunity), the message (disease) can't get past them to the remaining people without headphones on.
Same here! Are they somehow hoping people would all get it and immediately have all the anti bodies after they recover? And what about the ones that don’t have the immune system to fight it off? It’s puzzling
Stay home.
Why is it so difficult for some people to believe scientist? This makes perfectly good sense.