Herd immunity. Where is the evidence it is not an option?

Beasty

Del Griffith wrote: »

It's completely logical and even the WHO are saying it:

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405?s=09

There is zero confirmed cases reinfection aswell, some early testing issues, that's all. Safe assumption is immunity after infection like practically everything else.

"expect" not "will"

There have been some reports of reinfection but it may well be they never got rid of it in the first place. We simply do not know at this stage.

Even if we do is it immunity for a year? 6 months? Life?

No one knows at this stage so it's dangerous to assume anything about any immunity that may arise

El_Duderino 09

Danno wrote: »

One of three scenarios that I can think of right now:

1: The virus has been here since early winter and we already are nearing it.
2: The lockdown was implemented early enough and it's measures will ensure the disease dies out in the local population - but when the airports re-open for regular travel we'll be back at square one.
3: When there is a vaccine.

You're forgetting the other obvious scenario: it takes a couple of years for enough people to get it to reach the 70% Mark. The old and vulnerable can't be expected to get it so the young and healthy will all have to get it and work up from there.

The vulnerable people will be at high risk until this thing is over. They will need to cocoon for the next year or two or take their chances, of course.

Nermal

Beasty wrote: »

"expect" not "will"

There have been some reports of reinfection but it may well be they never got rid of it in the first place. We simply do not know at this stage.

Even if we do is it immunity for a year? 6 months? Life?

No one knows at this stage so it's dangerous to assume anything about any immunity that may arise

There have been no credible reports of reinfection - that in itself is proof that infection grants immunity for some period.

There has been scaremongering, media-hyped testing cock-ups (particularly in South Korea) that have been quietly retracted later.

Yes, we don't know for how long. But then, our current plans are based on getting a vaccine.

Which is the more dangerous assumption? Which is the more sane path?

Let 0.25%-0.35% of the population die, or impoverish ourselves sitting indoors waiting for a vaccine that might never come?

I wouldn't imagine we are anywhere close in Ireland. Our hospitals are nowhere even remotely close to capacity.

You need more and more less risky people to catch it to achieve herd immunity.

We are on some bizarre mission to get the numbers as low as possible. To what end? Nobody seems to know.

seamie78

I think its said that the actual fatality rate is between 0.1% and 0.37% based on our death figures to date and bear in mind some havnt been reported yet,, you could make an assumption that up to 1,375,000 could potentially have been infected or at the lower end of that scale 370,000. its very possible we are not that far off herd immunity

El_Duderino 09

Nermal wrote: »

Yes, we don't know for how long. But then, our current plans are based on getting a vaccine.

Which is the more dangerous assumption? Which is the more sane path?

Let 0.25%-0.35% of the population die, or impoverish ourselves sitting indoors waiting for a vaccine that might never come?

Most governments say they are waiting for a vaccine but in reality we will probably have herd Immunity before a vaccine. The vaccine will be great for vulnerable people so it's very important to find one eventually butthe reality is that young and healthy people are better off getting on with life and eventually getting the disease.

The key is to manage the level of infection to make sure the health service can cope.

Nermal

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The key is to manage the level of infection to make sure the health service can cope.

That strategy would involve lowering restrictions so that health service capacity was utilised to the absolute maximum, so that herd immunity could be achieved as quickly as possible with minimum economic cost.

Under that strategy, spare ICU beds are a sign that the lockdown needs to be lifted.

We're clearly not doing that though, we're following suppression.

El_Duderino 09

Nermal wrote: »

That strategy would involve lowering restrictions so that health service capacity was utilised to the absolute maximum, so that herd immunity could be achieved as quickly as possible with minimum economic cost.

Under that strategy, spare ICU beds are a sign that the lockdown needs to be lifted.

We're clearly not doing that though, we're following suppression.

For now, that's how it seems. The current approach is falling between two stools. I think once the first restrictions are lifted there will be pressure to lift more and more restrictions. Every industry will lobby for restrictions to be lifted on them and then transmission levels will soar. So its important to give themselves some headroom in ICU.

So right now we're trying to suppress it and I think we'll be following the herd Immunity route once we start lifting restrictions.

wakka12

seamie78 wrote: »

I think its said that the actual fatality rate is between 0.1% and 0.37% based on our death figures to date and bear in mind some havnt been reported yet,, you could make an assumption that up to 1,375,000 could potentially have been infected or at the lower end of that scale 370,000. its very possible we are not that far off herd immunity

New York antibody testing is the closest thing there currently is to 'proof' of a fatality rate and it is 0.8%. Another smaller German antibody study estimated 0.36%.

0.1% is an impossibility, seeing as far greater than 0.1% of the populations of several regions of the world have died of the virus already

Judging by the excess deaths stats presented yesterday, Dublin, a few adjoining counties and a few border counties are the only ones with any level of infections needed to be anywhere near it. The rest of the country is
a. largely free of it, or
b. the old and vulnerable people are somehow already immune (totally unlikely).

Even Cork is doing relatively well considering it has 1/2 million in the hinterland of Cork City.

Further to this, the majority of deaths are in care homes, we have nearly no infections in the community here. The second wave will wipe us out.

These stats were gathered from rip.ie, so would be accurate for home addresses, not hospital or care home locations.

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0505/1136496-death-notices-ireland-coronavirus/

JimmyVik

Deleted User wrote: »

I wouldn't imagine we are anywhere close in Ireland. Our hospitals are nowhere even remotely close to capacity.

You need more and more less risky people to catch it to achieve herd immunity.

We are on some bizarre mission to get the numbers as low as possible. To what end? Nobody seems to know.

Well that would be to save the lives of our elderly and our at risk people in the population. These lives matter you know.

JimmyVik

JimmyVik wrote: »

Well that would be to save the lives of our elderly and our at risk people in the population. These lives matter you know.

Save them so they can be killed in a second wave?

saabsaab

No one knows but if it follows the 1918 pandemic about a year without vaccine. There was also a second wave and third wave.

JJJJNR

Totally confused about how to keep my immunity topped up for when things do return I think wearing ppe now might be the wrong message to be sending out.. I think people are suffering ptsd under the circumstances.

Our bodies are constantly battling things that don't effect us because we are exposed to them on a daily basis, various strains of the cold and flu. I've a feeling the more we are in lock down the more dangerous these normal bugs will be and the longer we put off a return to normality the worse its going to get. What if the people who are asymptomatic to covid19 become symptomatic to another strain because of social distancing.

I'm really confused about it..

CalamariFritti

We won't know until we do testing of a representative subset. But we only test people with many symptoms. As of late we are testing people with just one symptom. Increasing the number of tests all the time.

This may be a good method for curbing the virus. But its not a good method for getting any meaningful numbers. We do 500 tests today we do 2000 tomorrow. Of course we are going to find more infected tomorrow. No surprise as we are doing more tests the percentage of 'hits' goes down all the time. Its wildly distorting the numbers.

Not saying it was/is the wrong strategy. But if were looking for answers to your question, this isn't it. We'd have to select a few thousand people that are representative for the population of Ireland and test all of them. Symptoms or not.

El_Duderino 09

JJJJNR wrote: »

Totally confused about how to keep my immunity topped up for when things do return I think wearing ppe now might be the wrong message to be sending out.. I think people are suffering ptsd under the circumstances.

Our bodies are constantly battling things that don't effect us because we are exposed to them on a daily basis, various strains of the cold and flu. I've a feeling the more we are in lock down the more dangerous these normal bugs will be and the longer we put off a return to normality the worse its going to get. What if the people who are asymptomatic to covid19 become symptomatic to another strain because of social distancing.

I'm really confused about it..

I really wouldn't worry about it. The normal cold and flu are really not worth worrying about unless you're vulnerable. But the vulnerable will have to cocoon until either herd Immunity or a vaccine so we're talking 12-18 months in either case.

If you're not vulnerable then just get on with it. When you get it, you deal with it. Chances of having a very bad experience are low. Most people are fine.

pgj2015

JJJJNR wrote: »

Totally confused about how to keep my immunity topped up for when things do return I think wearing ppe now might be the wrong message to be sending out.. I think people are suffering ptsd under the circumstances.

Our bodies are constantly battling things that don't effect us because we are exposed to them on a daily basis, various strains of the cold and flu. I've a feeling the more we are in lock down the more dangerous these normal bugs will be and the longer we put off a return to normality the worse its going to get. What if the people who are asymptomatic to covid19 become symptomatic to another strain because of social distancing.

I'm really confused about it..

I heard zinc and vitamin d are helpful in the fight against covid 19.

Nermal

wakka12 wrote: »

New York antibody testing is the closest thing there currently is to 'proof' of a fatality rate and it is 0.8%. Another smaller German antibody study estimated 0.36%.

0.1% is an impossibility, seeing as far greater than 0.1% of the populations of several regions of the world have died of the virus already

'Died with' vs. 'died of'...

JimmyVik

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I really wouldn't worry about it. The normal cold and flu are really not worth worrying about unless you're vulnerable. But the vulnerable will have to cocoon until either herd Immunity or a vaccine so we're talking 12-18 months in either case.

If you're not vulnerable then just get on with it. When you get it, you deal with it. Chances of having a very bad experience are low. Most people are fine.

The problem is all these bullet proof people catching it or even moving the virus around without catching it, will be spreading it to others and so on until it hits someone who dies from it. And if the people who think they are bullet proof would cop on, others wouldnt have to die. Pure selfishness.

wakka12

Nermal wrote: »

'Died with' vs. 'died of'...

Vast majority died of
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warning-as-major-study-finds-most-elderly-victims-would-not-have-died-otherwise-11980675

El_Duderino 09

JimmyVik wrote: »

The problem is all these bullet proof people catching it or even moving the virus around without catching it, will be spreading it to others and so on until it hits someone who dies from it. And if the people who think they are bullet proof would cop on, others wouldnt have to die. Pure selfishness.

Well I said vulnerable people should cocoon until the problem is gone. And I don't think anyone is bulletproof, I said young and healthy people just have to take our chances and most people are fine.

The thing is that it WILL take minimum of a year-18 months and could take many years. So I think we need to just get on with it and reach herd Immunity relatively quickly. There is no way to simply stay in lockdown for years.

The people who think we should stay in lockdown for years are simply ignoring the fact that the choices are both unpleasant and people will die.

Like, if we don't get back to work then there won't be budget to fund as many normal treatments in hospital. People will die in any case that's a fact.

JimmyVik

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Well I said vulnerable people should cocoon until the problem is gone. And I don't think anyone is bulletproof, I said young and healthy people just have to take our chances and most people are fine.

The thing is that it WILL take minimum of a year-18 months and could take many years. So I think we need to just get on with it and reach herd Immunity relatively quickly. There is no way to simply stay in lockdown for years.

The people who think we should stay in lockdown for years are simply ignoring the fact that the choices are both unpleasant and people will die.

Like, if we don't get back to work then there won't be budget to fund as many normal treatments in hospital. People will die in any case that's a fact.

If we could even hold out til a treatment was available which meant if you got it you wouldnt die from it that would be great

El_Duderino 09

JimmyVik wrote: »

If we could even hold out til a treatment was available which meant if you got it you wouldnt die from it that would be great

If you catch it you don't die right now. If a healthy person catches it they have a very small chance of dying.

OK. So how long will that be to get a treatment? Maybe 6months maybe 6years. We can't really stay as we are for 6 months so, in short, no.

No, we can't hold out until the treatment comes along. Us healthy people just need to take our chances and catch the disease at a steady, manageable rate.

Del Griffith

JimmyVik wrote: »

The problem is all these bullet proof people catching it or even moving the virus around without catching it, will be spreading it to others and so on until it hits someone who dies from it. And if the people who think they are bullet proof would cop on, others wouldnt have to die. Pure selfishness.

FFS - what's selfish is expecting the entire world, literally, the entire global economy, to halt and stay at a standstill for 1, 2, 5 even 10+ years, and expecting the next 2 or 3 or more generations to pick up the gargantuan tab and ensuing debt slavery left while you were catching up on Netflix and making Zoom calls.

There is no other option - herd immunity is the only solution that is viable.

The vulnerable, median age 82, have my sympathy as they will need to stay cocooned longer but its high time the rest of us just got on with it.

El_Duderino 09

Del Griffith wrote: »

FFS - what's selfish is expecting the entire world, literally, the entire global economy, to halt and stay at a standstill for 1, 2, 5 even 10+ years, and expecting the next 2 or 3 or more generations to pick up the gargantuan tab and ensuing debt slavery left while you were catching up on Netflix and making Zoom calls.

There is no other option - herd immunity is the only solution that is viable.

The vulnerable, median age 82, have my sympathy as they will need to stay cocooned longer but its high time the rest of us just got on with it.

Completely agree. We're all doing this for the sake of the vulnerable. And the young people will be paying it off for e rest of their lives. We'll pay to keep the older and vulnerable alive and then pay the old people to rent their second homes while we kiss goodbye to the chance to own our own home.

I wonder if the old and vulnerable people appreciate it at all.

is_that_so

CalamariFritti wrote: »

We'd have to select a few thousand people that are representative for the population of Ireland and test all of them. Symptoms or not.

That'll be included in the antibody testing when such a test is available.

ednwireland

dePeatrick wrote: »

1: Everyone who had a sniffle in early winter likes to think they had Covid, not true.
.

you cant say that and conversely you cant say you had it without an antibody test.

ShineOn7

dePeatrick wrote: »

3: There won't be a vacinne, not now, not ever.

I'm very skeptical about a vaccine too, but even i haven't been saying "not ever" to friends.

• Billions of dollars is being thrown at finding vaccines
• The HSE doctor doing the AMA on here thinks there'll be one for health workers by Q4 this year and Q1/Q2 next years for the public. He's also been a very cautious poster about this kind of false hope craic in the past, so I think he may be onto something. Let's fúcking hope so anyway

That said, yes I think there's better hope to be had in very effective treatments that are hopefully coming rather than a vaccine

is_that_so

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Completely agree. We're all doing this for the sake of the vulnerable. And the young people will be paying it off for e rest of their lives. We'll pay to keep the older and vulnerable alive and then pay the old people to rent their second homes while we kiss goodbye to the chance to own our own home.

I wonder if the old and vulnerable people appreciate it at all.

The list of at risk groups is quite substantial. Asthma & COPD alone would be 1m people and six in 10 are obese.

https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/people-at-higher-risk.html#very-high-risk

FVP3

Deleted User wrote: »

That's a whopping big assumption and one only the media and politicians are making. No medical personnel are saying this.

There is no evidence whatsoever that one is immune following infection with many physicians emphasising this at every opportunity.

I hope it is a thing and between that and a vaccine, we'll be sorted, but as of right now, there is not one piece of evidence backing up the herd immunity theory.

If herd immunity isn't possible then vaccines won't work either. If you aren't immune after getting the full disease, you won't be immune after a vaccine.

The evidence is that people gain a level of immunity, this is common across all known viruses and bacterial infections. There are very few tested cases that showed reinfection, so few its probably down to false positives or negatives.