If we could go back do you wish we went down the herd immunity route?

[Sakalibre]

Just curious

YABU - no
YANBU - yes

People who suggest this never actually think of the reality of what would have happened. Hospitals completely over run, loads of unnecessary deaths because ICU were full (no cancer surgery, women dying in childbirth, untreated sepsis etc). People dying in hospital corridors. Nurses and doctors dying in even greater numbers due to lack of PPE. The economy would also have been even more completely trashed and we'd have been banned from travelling abroad and no one would travel to the UK.

And surprise surprise, OP who doesn’t understand herd immunity just disappears.

Agree it's awful needing on off, on off, dragged out lockdowns. The sensible solution would be a belated Australia and New Zealand approach. So that we aren't in this same shit position two months from now. Yes we won't be in as good a position as them, because we left it so late but it's definitely better than alternative (ongoing crap all round with health at risk AND the economy so badly damaged).

So, if we really wanted to prevent further shittyness, and a semblance of normality before Christmas, we do 1-2 months proper (Spain, Italy, France etc style) lockdown now. With closed borders for up to one year (excepting essential travel - freight etc).

Proper hotel quarantine for essential travellers.

In 1-2 months time we could open up back to relative normality. Unfortunately I don't expect us to have enough sense and foresight (even now) to take this approach.

Sweden? Can we manage it immediately? Massively increased housing? (50% of Swedish households are single occupancy). The lack of overcrowding would certainly help limit the spread. I'd also welcome an excellent well funded healthcare system. Can we get the NHS to Swedish standard's overnight? If yes, let's do it.

Spreading discord on social media.

Who'd a thunk it.

So, if we really wanted to prevent further shittyness, and a semblance of normality before Christmas, we do 1-2 months proper (Spain, Italy, France etc style) lockdown now. With closed borders for up to one year (excepting essential travel - freight etc

And for those that have lost everything how would we even pay for food?

The Spain Italy lockdown I thought had actually done them no favours and led directly to their boost in numbers.

I don’t think New Zealand have got the right idea
This could never be over. Will people from NZ be ok with never seeing any overseas family again. Never travelling again.

How long before someone gets sick of the restrictions

We need to crack on. Some of us on this thread might die. Nobody ever did say life was fair and Mother Nature’s always had a trick or two up her sleeve. We’ve just lived our lifetimes through a peaceful period of history with increasing social and medical advances.

Life is for living - not for locking yourselves up.

@cbt944

It's not true that just because they are trying to develop them that that means that they will manage to succeed. I'm sure there will be some illnesses and diseases where they've already tried far more than 160 new treatments with different technologies and approaches and still haven't succeeded with those either.

I said there will be many vaccines, eventually. This was in response to the bleating that there will never be a vaccine, etc. People worldwide are working on this with ferocious dedication, and I find that uplifting.

But perhaps you prefer to deal with non-facts and vague impressions picked up from the ether, or Facebook and its ilk, that foster irrational theories and bolster a sense of hopelessness and foment complaint.

Eventually could mean 10 years or more down the line. We absolutely won't be living like this until then.

You couldn't be any more wrong about my perspective on this.

I'm not in the camp that things have to stay like this until we have a vaccine (and we might never find one so we're screwed forever).

I'm in the camp that things we have to learn to live with it and not pin all of our hopes on a vaccine that may not come....and I think that's what we will do.

@InsaneInTheViralMembrane

We need to crack on. Some of us on this thread might die. Nobody ever did say life was fair and Mother Nature’s always had a trick or two up her sleeve. We’ve just lived our lifetimes through a peaceful period of history with increasing social and medical advances.

Life is for living - not for locking yourselves up.

Why do we bother with healthy eating messages, fitness, not drinking excessively, seat belts, drug laws... Why don't we all just go out and enjoy ourselves because we'll die anyway?

Maybe the new government motto should be "here for a good time, not a long time"?

No

Isn’t that what Brazil did. They had 1 in 500 die..

...at the moment.

You don't need lockdowns and curfews if you have a fit for purpose test and trace system.

And as one of the richest countries in the world, we could have one.

But we don't.

And until we do this chaos and death will just go on and on.

*Why do we bother with healthy eating messages, fitness, not drinking excessively, seat belts, drug laws... Why don't we all just go out and enjoy ourselves because we'll die anyway?

Maybe the new government motto should be "here for a good time, not a long time"?*

Lockdown and covid restrictions has lots of negative effects. That's what the difference is.
Many people are suffering severe mental health consequences. The longer this goes on the more children will miss out on socialisation in school and all that that involves. That has negative consequences that should not be dismissed.

Many people are suffering severe mental health consequences. The longer this goes on the more children will miss out on socialisation in school and all that that involves. That has negative consequences that should not be dismissed.

What would the impact of no lockdown or restrictions be on mental health or socialisation and schooling? Do you think society will function normally with thousands and thousands of people sick and dying?

@EDSGFC

Exactly. People are comparing lockdown to a situation where lockdown wasn't required obviously the latter would be better but that wasn't the choice we were facing.

You look at history and see people did in fact isolate if they could when plagues, (sweating sickness for the Tudors) came around.

And they believed as a society in an afterlife.

Quarantine is not a new word.

Herd immunity is a concept defined for, and only achievable by, vaccination programmes.

So yes, let's vaccinate when a vaccine is available. 💉

Do people who support herd immunity not have anyone they love

It is because I love them I can see that an extended lockdown isn’t doing them any good.

What has happened to dd under the guise of Covid is appalling.

More than one of my friends are nearing mental breakdowns and one who should have been divorced after 4 years of trying has had her final court hearing postponed so many times she fears she will still be married this time next year.

In the end her financially abusive stbexh has nothing on what the courts have put her through in the name of Covid

@EDSGFC

www.newscientist.com/article/2251615-is-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-a-cautionary-tale-or-a-success-story/

Sweden has had 57 deaths per 100,000, compared with five in Norway and 11 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 70 and the US 50.)

The outcomes from Sweden are not as great as some posters on here would have us believe.

They had 10 times the deaths per 100,000 than Denmark and five times greater than Norway. How is that something to emulate?

Yes, I am not sure why people think Sweden is some kind of gold standard response we should all be emulating.

Perhaps they think that apart from avoiding serving rare pangolin to the over 80's Sweden pretty much carried on as normal?
Which might explain all the ...but Sweden comments from the anti lockdown people....

Clearly they didn't just carry on as if the virus didn't exist though, they had a kind of voluntary lockdown albeit a lighter touch one than many countries.

But Sweden does not = UK so a comparison with neighbouring Nordic countries seems more sensible and the UK (if we must do country X vs country Y comparisons, although I am not convinced how helpful they are) is perhaps better compared with say France, Germany etc...

Absolutely - Peru had one of the toughest lockdowns and wore masks from early days. Yet their deaths per million are higher than Brazil - who we all know has no real effective lockdown and as for masks....

Sweden near community immunity now - yes I know about the population density etc but an example to us all.

Gompertz curve is going to happen no matter how much we fight it.

Interesting theories that we may have scored an own goal as our natural community immunity for many viruses including respiratory spreads during the "safe" period of the summer and spring months. We may have disrupted this with lockdown and thus will end up with more deaths from all respiratory causes this winter.

@downwardspiral1

No definitely not - not even going to vote because it’s a ridiculous question - why would I want more people to have died?

I do wish we had gone down the same road as some countries though - who avoided having to lockdown for as long or at all by having really good track and trace and quarantine in place.

But our government is utterly incompetent so we are where we are now.

Well said.

There's a chap called Ivor Cummins on you tube who does a very interesting regular analysis of the figures, he has done a Nordic countries comparison on his latest vid. Plus loads of info on Western Europe curves.

I would link but I don't know how!!

Virologist here. YABVVVVVU.

@CoffeeandCroissant

My aunt says exactly the same about Sweden and is anti-lockdown. She thinks there should have been no lockdown at all. Pro herd immunity and the vulnerable will be shielded/stay at home and those who died were about to die anyway. She's late 60s and asthmatic...

Sweden aren't comparable to us, they have a smaller, less dense population with 50% living in single person households, they are healthier and they are a compliant society. They comparable to their Nordic neighbours, and compared to them, they did badly.

Anybody advocating a herd immunity approach should answer these questions:

What percentage of the population will need to be infected to achieve herd immunity and how many deaths and long term illness will that result in?

What do you mean by immunity and how long does that immunity last for?

Answer to both questions is of course we don't really know yet, so what you are advocating is a huge gamble which may cost many lives and we don't even know if that gamble would work because we don't know how long people are immune for - 1 year, 2 years, more than that, less than that?

With initial vaccine efficacy data due within a matter of months, it's certainly worth at least waiting for information on that.