Italian medical officer has died *edited by MNHQ*

[NellyGrace]

www.standard.co.uk/news/world/italy-medical-chief-dies-death-toll-coronavirus-covid19-a4386356.html

[Justaboy]

Herd immunity is where a number of a population have an illness and devlop or possess antibodies so the infection is shall we say "seen off" by the body before it gets established.

Usually done by vacineation or by having the illness.

Course at the moment there is no vaccine so the only way to obtain this is by a sufficent number having that illness, which isn't that good a way of doing it:(

And of course viral things like Flu mutate over time do what was a decent set if antibodies in last year's flu jab isnt as good as it might be this year as the damm thing has changed.

[Devlesko]

If getting it makes people immune then, why bother with vaccines. Do we not have immunity from MMR then, as plenty got it before immunisations?
Herd immunity either works or it doesn't surely?
I'm just questioning why it works for clovid 19 and not MMR, or chicken pox a better example?

[OmartheGoose]

I'm not medical but I think it's because we don't have a vaccine that a lot of us have to get it (and some of us die) and we're trying to engineer the stronger ones getting it.

If we didn't have a vaccine for measles, for eg, a lot of us would have to get it (and some/a lot die) to get herd immunity the hard way. So vaccines are a painless way to get herd immunity. Maybe?

[AllTheIceCream]

I think we should be cancelling mass gatherings and saying if you can work from home you should, bare minimum.

And we should be testing, we appear to have given up on that! How are we going to tell what actions are effective if we have no metric?

[Justaboy]

If getting it makes people immune then, why bother with vaccines

Basically it's One and much the same thing! When you have an illness your body will start to make antibodies that fight the incoming infection unless it gets overwhelmed which is what sometimes happens.

However if you already have those antibodies then the body will start that fight before the illness gets establised, and therfore no illness:)

With vacination you are "infected" with a very weak version of the infection so your body makes these antibodies a lot easier and thence you have them next time their needed!

Intresting article here on why ordinary Soap is a very effective anti virus agent:) And works better then the alcohol ones!

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/12/science-soap-kills-coronavirus-alcohol-based-disinfectants

[Purplewhitelie]

Well yes young people can also be severely affected by it as we have seen in China.