"Herd Immunity", without a vaccine is mass murder. This is what the NYT had to say about it from a biologist and it is time for the GOP to stop

Those who advocate this for the United States, China, or any large population country are advocating mass murder

The long and short of it, to be blunt is that up to three million Americans would die if the Cornavirus "washed over" the USA, and even if there is a fatality level of less than 1 % , that one of the common affects of this virus is to cut lung capacity dramatically. I.e. as was noted in Hong Kong even "recovered" persons post virus infection loose up to 35% of their lung capacity. For those with severe allergies, even if they survive the illness, if their lung capacity is so dramatically compromised , they will essentially be in the position of extreme lung damage as in COPD.

Conavirus origins have a similarity to Flu, but we do not have a vaccine, and even if 1% of those who become ill die, if we extrapolate that there are 3 million deaths in America and that there are many with dramatically reduced lung capacity, i.e. up to 35% of their lungs destroyed, the effect will be to add ENORMOUS costs to the US medical system which frankly was badly compromised pre- Coronavirus epidemic times already.

Those advocating this route are either asking for the acceptance of mass death, and/or they do not get it as to how deadly serious the medical complications for tens of millions of survivors with symptoms such as reduced lung capacity are.

It is time for the GOP advocating this approach to stop advocating mass murder, which is what this approach amounts to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

Quote

What the Proponents of ‘Natural’ Herd Immunity Don’t Say

Try to reach it without a vaccine, and millions will die.

By Carl T. Bergstrom and Natalie Dean

Dr. Bergstrom is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. Dr. Dean is an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.

• May 1, 2020
• 
  

Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch

The coronavirus moved so rapidly across the globe partly because no one had prior immunity to it. Failure to check its spread will result in a catastrophic loss of lives. Yet some politicians, epidemiologists and commentators are advising that the most practical course of action is to manage infections while allowing so-called herd immunity to build.

The concept of herd immunity is typically described in the context of a vaccine. When enough people are vaccinated, a pathogen cannot spread easily through the population. If you are infected with measles but everyone you interact with has been vaccinated, transmission will be stopped in its tracks.

Vaccination levels must stay above a threshold that depends upon the transmissibility of the pathogen. We don’t yet know exactly how transmissible the coronavirus is, but say each person infects an average of three others. That would mean nearly two-thirds of the population would need to be immune to confer herd immunity.

In the absence of a vaccine, developing immunity to a disease like Covid-19 requires actually being infected with the coronavirus. For this to work, prior infection has to confer immunity against future infection. While hopeful, scientists are not yet certain that this is the case, nor do they know how long this immunity might last. The virus was discovered only a few months ago.

But even assuming that immunity is long-lasting, a very large number of people must be infected to reach the herd immunity threshold required. Given that current estimates suggest roughly 0.5 percent to 1 percent of all infections are fatal, that means a lot of deaths.

Perhaps most important to understand, the virus doesn’t magically disappear when the herd immunity threshold is reached. That’s not when things stop — it’s only when they start to slow down.

Once enough immunity has been built in the population, each person will infect fewer than one other person, so a new epidemic cannot start afresh. But an epidemic that is already underway will continue to spread. If 100,000 people are infectious at the peak and they each infect 0.9 people, that’s still 90,000 new infections, and more after that. A runaway train doesn’t stop the instant the track begins to slope uphill, and a rapidly spreading virus doesn’t stop right when herd immunity is attained.

If the pandemic went uncontrolled in the United States, it could continue for months after herd immunity was reached, infecting many more millions in the process.

By the time the epidemic ended, a very large proportion of the population would have been infected — far above our expected herd immunity threshold of around two-thirds. These additional infections are what epidemiologists refer to as “overshoot.”

After Herd Immunity ... More Infections

Herd immunity doesn’t stop a virus in its tracks. The number of infections continues to climb after herd immunity is reached.

This is the “overshoot”: people keep getting

infected after herd immunity is reached

Some countries are attempting strategies intended to “safely” build up population immunity to the coronavirus without a vaccine. Sweden, for instance, is asking older people and those with underlying health issues to self-quarantine but is keeping many schools, restaurants and bars open. Many commentators have suggested that this would also be a good policy for poorer countries like India. But given the fatality rate, there is no way to do this without huge numbers of casualties — and indeed, Sweden has already seen far more deaths than its neighbors.

As we see it, now is far too early to throw up our hands and proceed as if a vast majority of the world’s population will inevitably become infected before a vaccine becomes available.

Moreover, we should not be overconfident about our ability to conduct a “controlled burn” with a pandemic that exploded across the globe in a matter of weeks despite extraordinary efforts to contain it.

Since the early days of the pandemic, we have been using social distancing to flatten its curve. This decreases strain on the health care system. It buys the scientific community time to develop treatments and vaccines, as well as build up capacity for testing and tracing. While this is an extraordinarily difficult virus to manage, countries such as New Zealand and Taiwan have had early success, challenging the narrative that control is impossible. We must learn from their successes.

There would be nothing quick or painless about reaching herd immunity without a vaccine.

Carl T. Bergstrom is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. Natalie Dean is an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.

end of quote

ONCE AGAIN

The long and short of it, to be blunt is that up to three million Americans would die if the Cornavirus "washed over" the USA, and even if there is a fatality level of less than 1 % , that one of the common affects of this virus is to cut lung capacity dramatically. I.e. as was noted in Hong Kong even "recovered" persons post virus infection loose up to 35% of their lung capacity. For those with severe allergies, even if they survive the illness, if their lung capacity is so dramatically compromised , they will essentially be in the position of extreme lung damage as in COPD.

Conavirus origins have a similarity to Flu, but we do not have a vaccine, and even if 1% of those who become ill die, if we extrapolate that there are 3 million deaths in America and that there are many with dramatically reduced lung capacity, i.e. up to 35% of their lungs destroyed, the effect will be to add ENORMOUS costs to the US medical system which frankly was badly compromised pre- Coronavirus epidemic times already.

Those advocating this route are either asking for the acceptance of mass death, and/or they do not get it as to how deadly serious the medical complications for tens of millions of survivors with symptoms such as reduced lung capacity are.

As I said before, this is mass murder. In addition, as I cannot over emphasize, there is NO guarantee that those sick ONCE with the Cornavirus will not get it a second time. This does not have the immunology trajectory of the common flu. What is not appreciated is that Sweden which has taken this route is gambling that its citizens do not get sick a second time with this illness. That is NOT supported by the data. I.e. there are cases in South Korea where those deemed "cured" of the Cornavirus later had remission of Coravirus symptoms. And this illness is much more infectious than the common flu.

It is time to cut this mythology out and let the scientists treat the illness,with politicians getting out of the way

Andrew Beckwith, PhD