To believe we are back to Herd Immunity

[yesterdayschild]

Those of us who have very little are almost being forced back to work where the risk of catching CV could be very high. The rich, famous and privileged can afford to stay home or work from home where the risk is much lower.

I am worried for everyone who has to go back to work. Ifeel that the government does not give a shit about the less fortunate people.

Encouraging people to sit in the sun is not in any way a pro herd immunity policy because it is low risk.
The longer the disease has been with us the better idea we have of what spreads it, and it is becoming increasingly clear that most if not all the transmission happens indoors and it would be very hard indeed to spread it sunbathing. Perhaps if you had someone within a few feet of you with their face turned towards you and you sneezed right at them.

Maybe I'm being thick, but herd immunity only works if catching it once makes you immune.

That's also assuming you survive catching it once. The Gov should at least be honest as say that if you all catch it (or the 95% required for herd immunity through vaccination) 1% of you will die but 99% will then be immune (we hope) hooray!

@KenDodd Herd immunity is for the good of the herd! Don't be so selfish.

@KenDodd - and it may not even give lasting immunity.

If herd immunity is not govt strategy, what is? V hard to figure out as they seem to have been ineffective at isolate, test, trace.

Waiting for the scientific evidence that one infection with COVID 19 makes you immune? Assuming it’s been published and verified given the experts pontificating on this thread?

Why do you think it’s only working class that have been working or are going back?

Have surgeons not been working? Have GP’s not been working? Have police chiefs and those with senior positions at the police not been working? Are Parliament not back? Have head teachers not been in?

Stop trying to create something that isn’t there.

Waiting for the scientific evidence that one infection with COVID 19 makes you immune?

This would require the proof of a negative. In fact what we're looking for are people who have been infected more than once.

1% of you will die but 99% will then be immune (we hope) hooray!

You need to calm down and at least read the stats. More knowledge comes out constantly.

It’s likely 0.05 percent and it’s skewed to the elderly and those with underlying conditions. The amount of healthy people under 65 who die is miniscule and likely a thousandth of a percent fatality rate.

I really did think everyone knew it wasn’t a blanket 1 percent across the population. That healthy people below 65 have a miniscule risk. In fact to date approx 150 people healthy under 65s have died. The government publishes the data by age group and with underlying conditions.

It really is better to take a few mins to educate yourself rather than panicking and getting it wrong.

Why do you think it’s only working class that have been working or are going back?

It's the Momentum narrative! Someone in another thread was trying to paint the event as plucky-but-oppressed working-class single mums versus the Duke of Westminster

it’s skewed to the elderly and those with underlying conditions
Do they not count then?
Maybe they should just publish the death rate for young healthy people, seems like we don't need to worry if only old and sick people die. It'll save the tax payers some money as well, added bonus!

I really did think everyone knew it wasn’t a blanket 1 percent across the population. That healthy people below 65 have a miniscule risk. In fact to date approx 150 people healthy under 65s have died. The government publishes the data by age group and with underlying conditions.

Oh, and I did already know this. Even so I would ALWAYS include the elderly and sick in the overall mortality rate, because it's correct to include them and, well just because they are also human beings and do count in any numbers.

Fully expecting you to come back and say ...but, but , but, it might not have been CV that killed them.

I think that is the only option given that we have no idea if/when a vaccine will be found. In order to plug the hole in the country's finances I would like to see the royal family abolished and their assets seized - their pay back to the nation for the years of being supported by the tax payer .

@KenDodd - I think the point though is that those considered high risk are now being shielded. Which means that the death rate among those groups will be much, much lower and meanwhile the rest of the population will begin to develop the 'herd immunity' necessary. I don't think anyone is saying they don't count.

it’s skewed to the elderly and those with underlying conditions
Do they not count then?

The elderly count less in any economic/utilitarian analysis - see the concept of the quality-adjusted life year.

I think kendodd fully knows the point, he or she is just hacked off she was called out on her post.

Accusing someone of saying the sick and elderly don’t count is heinous.

See thread I think I was naive, the older ( than what) people don't count apparently. They are done, finished.

It is important to keep sight of the figures and who is most at risk. If large sections of the public believe that they have the same risk of dying as the elderly or those with conditions which make them vulnerable, how are they going to react when a vaccine is developed?

It will take time to roll out a vaccination and just like the flu jab, it will need to prioritise those who are most vulnerable (and those is certain jobs). If everyone is thinking that they are equally likely to die, people will be demanding the vaccination at once and begrudging those who get it first.

A scramble for the vaccination would not be a good thing.

The amount of healthy people under 65 who die is miniscule and likely a thousandth of a percent fatality rate.
And your point is?

You can't surely be suggesting the huge numbers of people under 65 with high risk conditions and everybody over 65 is expendable?

Morals aside that's rather a lot of people.

Btw most 'non healthy' under 65s are not at death's door, as some seem to think. Boris's predecessor has one of the highest risk conditions of them all. The UK media finally reported today on the fact that diabetes is likely the biggest risk (despite it not being in the shielding list).

Theresa May managed to be PM despite her diabetes. Most with underlying conditions are the same. Working and leading normal lives.

And why do the Let's Get On With It let's allow lots of (other) people to die needlessly and further bugger the economy crew always ignore the third option? The one almost every other country in the world has opted for.

We don't need to wait for a vaccine. We could, instead, follow everybody else's lead (worldwide) and get the infection rate down. We need to:

a) Test and trace.
b) Enough PPE for frontline staff.
c) Drugs and other treatments like oxygen.
d) Treat early when chances of survival are decent.
e) Masks for the public

Relatively simple measures given other countries have managed it.

Wise words from Dr Michael Ryan on last night's WHO press conference:

If the virus is still present and you bring people closer together you don't have to be an astrophysicist to work out that the disease will move more easily from person to person in that situation. So if you can get the day-to-day case number down to the lowest possible level and get as much virus out of the community as possible then when you open you will tend to have less transmission or much less risk.

If you reopen in the presence of a high degree of virus transmission then that transmission may accelerate. If that virus transmission accelerates and you don't have the systems to detect it it will be days or weeks before you know something's wrong and by the time that happens you're back into a situation where your only response is another lock-down.

I think this is what we all fear, a vicious cycle of public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster followed by economic disaster. Sometimes there's a bit of a false equation here. I'm listening and involved in discussions all the time where people are asking me; so this is the economy or the health system.

It's not because I think very, very smart people are saying on the economic side that the worst thing that can happen is if we come out of a lock-down and then we don't do the health thing right and then we go back into a lock-down, that that has more danger for the economic system than it actually has for the health system in a sense.

Because you can imagine that if the health system gets time to recover then it can cope with another rise in cases and the health system can probably do that a few times. I'm not sure how many times the economic system can do that so I do think this isn't an either/or and it's really important that we learn those lessons now.

I think you see in cases like particularly in Korea, in China, in Germany where there's been a jump in cases, the governments there have been alert to that happening and have taken very immediate action to investigate and I think that's what we need to see.

When we see that kind of rapid action then we're reassured and I think populations are reassured but if we don't have those public health surveillance systems in place and then we start to see the hospitals fill up again as the indicator, if we have to wait until our hospitals are overflowing before we recognise there's a problem then I think you're not into trial-and-error.

Then you're into a cautionary tale and we should not be waiting to see if opening of lock-downs has worked by counting the cases in the ICUs or counting the bodies in the morgue. That is not the way to know something has gone wrong. The way to know that the disease is coming back is to have community-based surveillance, to be testing and to know the problem's coming back and then be able to adjust your public health measures accordingly.

Let us not go back to a situation where we don't know what's happening until our hospitals are overflowing. That is not a good way to do business.

Hi @ToffeeYoghurt,

The two strategies are not mutually exclusive.

I think this is what we all fear, a vicious cycle of public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster followed by economic disaster.
Thanks for posting LangClegsInSpace

I'm pleased to know that I'm in good company. I've been saying the same as the very sensible and clearly knowledgeable Dr Ryan for ages.

All this fighting over who's back at work and who isn't and 'it's not fair, I work so should you' Wake up.
Things could be so very different if people stopped fighting amongst themselves and woke up.
The economy would survive if the 1% took a small hit, but we can't have that! Most of them don't even pay their fair taxes.
Herd immunity takes generations, plus we don't know enough about the long term implications of being infected yet.
We are heading for a huge disaster.
No we cannot lock down forever but what we can do is get the numbers significantly lower with a proper lockdown and then track, trace and isolate until a vaccination is found.

As soon as the first wave is over, all supermarket workers, NHS staff and other key workers who have been working FT should be given 2-3 weeks off to chill, fully paid. They have been working whilst we haven't and under terrible circumstances. It is the least they deserve.

@LangClegsInSpace
Says it much more eloquently than I did.

Wise words from Dr Michael Ryan on last night's WHO press conference:

If the virus is still present and you bring people closer together you don't have to be an astrophysicist to work out that the disease will move more easily from person to person in that situation. So if you can get the day-to-day case number down to the lowest possible level and get as much virus out of the community as possible then when you open you will tend to have less transmission or much less risk.

If you reopen in the presence of a high degree of virus transmission then that transmission may accelerate. If that virus transmission accelerates and you don't have the systems to detect it it will be days or weeks before you know something's wrong and by the time that happens you're back into a situation where your only response is another lock-down.

I think this is what we all fear, a vicious cycle of public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster followed by economic disaster. Sometimes there's a bit of a false equation here. I'm listening and involved in discussions all the time where people are asking me; so this is the economy or the health system.

It's not because I think very, very smart people are saying on the economic side that the worst thing that can happen is if we come out of a lock-down and then we don't do the health thing right and then we go back into a lock-down, that that has more danger for the economic system than it actually has for the health system in a sense.

Because you can imagine that if the health system gets time to recover then it can cope with another rise in cases and the health system can probably do that a few times. I'm not sure how many times the economic system can do that so I do think this isn't an either/or and it's really important that we learn those lessons now.

I think you see in cases like particularly in Korea, in China, in Germany where there's been a jump in cases, the governments there have been alert to that happening and have taken very immediate action to investigate and I think that's what we need to see.

When we see that kind of rapid action then we're reassured and I think populations are reassured but if we don't have those public health surveillance systems in place and then we start to see the hospitals fill up again as the indicator, if we have to wait until our hospitals are overflowing before we recognise there's a problem then I think you're not into trial-and-error.

Then you're into a cautionary tale and we should not be waiting to see if opening of lock-downs has worked by counting the cases in the ICUs or counting the bodies in the morgue. That is not the way to know something has gone wrong. The way to know that the disease is coming back is to have community-based surveillance, to be testing and to know the problem's coming back and then be able to adjust your public health measures accordingly.

Let us not go back to a situation where we don't know what's happening until our hospitals are overflowing. That is not a good way to do business.

youtu.be/euLCb4sJ62A?t=1712