Herd immunity

[pancakeloverrr]

I want to know what other mumsnetters think:

Are we all eventually supposed to get covid? Is that the plan? That eventually everyone must get it?

Just wondering what your opinion is regarding the pandemic.

To be more clear- is the virus supposed to eventually become as normal as the flu?

Or are they trying to eradicate it? What about countries that have very little positives and have done an excellent job of eliminating/controlling the virus to almost nothing. Are people from western and South American countries not allowed to travel there ever again?

I'm just not sure what the end goal is for this virus for the world?

I think that was talked about early on but who knows? The approach and the reasons behind it are not very clear. It’s hard to see how else it will go with England getting back to business as usual almost. Sorry I don’t have specifics.

Most countries, no matter what strategy they are pursuing, are operating towards an end goal of an effective vaccine.

There are four basic strategies that countries are deploying. Which one a country has gone with depends on a mix of good or bad luck, and good or bad management.

Eradication – getting rid of all community spread cases within borders through extreme government restrictions, test, trace and isolate strategy and quarantining all new arrivals within borders. New Zealand and Iceland are examples of this strategy.

Elimination – reducing cases within borders to minimum as before but without an expectation of completely removing community spread cases, using strong test, trace and isolate systems to reduce spread. Australia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam etc are pursuing this.

Suppression – reducing cases to a level manageable by the health system through varying levels of government or state-mandated restrictions. US, most of Europe, UK are pursuing this, or ostensibly pursuing this.

Mitigation - effectively letting the virus spread through the community to hopefully achieve herd immunity, with light levels of government or state-mandated restrictions. Sweden is explicitly pursuing this and Brazil is doing so by omission. Ultimately these countries will still need a vaccine to avoid future outbreaks as immunity wears off or naturally reduces through population turnover.

More likely eugenics approach in the UK.
Sweden too. They now have one of Europe's highest death rates.

Herd immunity? How, when experts think Immunity might only last six months.

I guess they can travel, they may just need quarantine for 14 days. Maybe eventually the virus will evolve to become less virulent. If I was a low rate country, I would try and form bubbles with other low rate countries first and see what happens. Others perhaps could still be able to come in - just need quarantine.

@ToffeeYoghurt

I did not know that the immunity only lasts 6 months!! Thank you for sharing that information.

So this will be like the seasonal flu, but more deadly?

I am going bonkers trying to figure out how to proceed when we start fully reopening.

@antisocialdistance

Thank you for all the information. I just wonder how then we go back to 'normal' for work and holidays to other countries that has almost eliminated the cases.

I just wonder how then we go back to 'normal' for work and holidays to other countries that has almost eliminated the cases.

If you are in a country that has taken a suppression or mitigation approach you will probably not be able to travel to a country that has taken an elimination or eradication approach until a vaccine has been developed and delivered to both countries. You should at some point be able to travel to other countries that have taken a suppression or mitigation approach.

Essentially two global blocs of countries will probably evolve until a vaccine is widespread.

Countries who have pursued elimination or eradication successfully will likely negotiate to open their borders to each other for travel. Countries that have pursued suppression or mitigation will likely be open to each other as long as they have similar levels of infection. If there is a big disparity, there may be restrictions.

No-one knows that immunity only lasts for 6 months, it’s barely existed for 6 months.

There is no “plan that everyone is supposed to get it”. But eradicating it isn’t a feasible plan; nor is everyone hibernating inside indefinitely. We have to adapt to living with it, and exposure leading to increasing degrees of immunity throughout the community will happen as a natural part of that process. Even if previous infection doesn’t confer complete immunity, re-infection is likely to be milder and associated with less spreading. In time, this contributes to reducing spread in the community.

A vaccine is the answer, but even that is unlikely to get rid of it completely. Some people will refuse to be vaccinated, and the elderly often don’t mount a good immunological response to vaccination (senescence of the immune system). So, the most likely outcome is that it becomes much like seasonal flu. On the other hand, it’s new and we can’t see into the future and we don’t know exactly how it’s going to behave - anyone who claims to isn’t being totally realistic about the bounds of our current knowledge.

Look up H1N1 flu. It wasn’t as bad as originally feared because it was antigenically close to an earlier strain of flu that people over 60 had met before, leaving them with some cell-mediated immunity to it. Younger people either got it or had mild/asymptotic infection and developed their own immunity. So it transitioned from pandemic to endemic. I often see people on here claim that it went away - it didn’t; it’s been around every year since and was by far the most common circulating strain last year ( this year was more H3N2). But it didn’t ever overwhelm health services or kill the number of people that covid has, that has happened because no-one had any degree of immunity to it because it is completely new.

@ToffeeYoghurt where did you get the 6 months immunity data from? Really such rubbish is spouted on here sometimes.

I'd read coronavirus immunity usually lasts 3 - 4 years.

Scientists don't know how long coronavirus immunity lasts for as it's a new virus. Until the data is available we can only guess (based on other viruses).

@ToffeeYoghurt please can you show a link where an expert has said immunity only lasts 6 months?

It's not rubbish about six months immunity. I have read that too. Unfortunately l can't remember the source!

Please can we see a reliable source?

There was a study in Amsterdam that suggested 6 months. It appears to have been based on a pool of 10 people and covered 4 strains of human coronavirus. The article I read didn't make it very clear if one of those strains was this coronavirus or not.

So no reliable source, more fake news on mumsnet 🙄

www.google.com/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2020/05/25/covid-19-immunity-to-coronaviruses-may-only-last-just-six-months-says-new-study
This was the article I read, but it's quite vague

Honestly, there is little point speculating about how long immunity might last - thats all the scientists are doing at this time anyway - speculating and making informed guesses. In one of the briefings JVT was clear that unfortunately there is no way to speed up the science of getting this information as it can literally only be determined with the passage of time and if people start catching it again.

There is currently no definitive answer.

Euronews is not a reliable source, it’s as bad as the Daily Mail 😂 As the article says it may and they didn’t test on Covid19, such rubbish on here, people believe anything

@ToffeeYoghurt hopefully you can come back to back up your statement with FACT.

There was a report that said immunity might only last 6 months, but the concensus appears to be that it's more likely to be 2 years minimum.
We're not all going to get it either, going by London it seems to burn itself out at quite a low %. It would appear that many people have some degree of immunity, either through general good health, previous exposure to one of the coronaviruses responsible for the common cold and, possibly, vaccination for other illnesses (The BCG and rubella component of the MMR are possibles).

There’s some people on mumsnet that love to scaremonger for some reason 🙄

The six months immunity might not be rubbish but it is not proven, so the scepticism is based on existing Coronaviruses and that previous infected CV patients have had a second illness.

Either way, does look very optimistic to think that herd immunity is the way out of this pandemic.

I just don't understand why the UK has such high infection rates nor any sign of an effective track and trace plan?

If it’s not proven don’t make a statement like it’s fact when it’s not.