"Herd immunity" Strategy on Coronavirus

[HPFA]

Incendiary words from Dominic Cummings (see Point 1 below):

twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1241659774925787136

And the full article can be read here

twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1241659774925787136

For all those sensible people who don't follow political Twitter:

1. Tim Shipman is renowned for his sources within the Conservative Party and if he says this happened then it happened.

2. Dominic Cummings is an evil sociopath. This isn't coming from some woke leftie - I have respect for many former and current Conservative politicians. He just is.

OP just discussing this with my partner as I was having a rant how unclear Boris Johnson's press conferences are compared to his other ministers.

Article link:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-ten-days-that-shook-britain-and-changed-the-nation-for-ever-spz6sc9vb

Hopefully someone has a share token.

Errk my apologies - the second link was meant to be this:

twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1241669387125473280

Not great for anyone without good eyesight though.

All I keep thinking about the ‘herd immunity’ theory (and that’s all this is, a bloody theory, because they don’t know anything about this brand new virus) is this: herd immunity didn’t work for smallpox. Diphtheria. Polio. Did it?

Yep, I knew this stunk of Cummings and his ideology. I've been saying it for weeks and being called a loon. I'm absolutely fucking raging.

Blood on their hands.

Confirmed by another respected journo - these aren't rent-a-gobs.

twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1241676434680229888

@HFPA thank you, I zoomed right in, it cuts off though. Has anyone got the second half?
I have been saying all this to my husband and my mum, but now seeing it there in black and white, it’s just sickening!

www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/03/uk-backed-off-on-herd-immunity-to-beat-coronavirus-we-need-it/

Read this though. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when all the lockdowns open up. I still can't help wondering whether it would have been better to isolate only the old and vulnerable, and allow everyone else to get it.... we will never know now.

I would be interested to find as well, whether the modelled statistics for mortalities are total, or in excess of normal. In other words, and perhaps sensitive, I am sorry, but, most of the deaths are happening in people who would have died in the next one or two years anyway, so in other words, how many of the deaths are just brought forward. 350,000 people over 80 died in 2018, so is that now a potential 600,000 for 2020?

Caveat, we all had to do drastic measures to enable health care systems to cope, and barely, with the peaks of this pandemic, so not against those at all, in fact I am self isolating as we have two family members who are ill, but I still do wonder about the modelling.