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Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

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Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#1

Post by TheAlchemist »

While virtually all countries adopt the lockdown strategy to eliminate the virus spread, UK is apparently going on with 'herd immunity' strategy. It's pretty well explained in this tweet: https://twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/12385183716516495...

Basically, the idea is to get the young infected, as the virus seems to be relatively inoffensive for young people, and thus becoming immune. Once the country reach a threshold percentage of immune population, the virus cannot spread effectively anymore, hence protecting the vulnerable ones.

My gut feeling is that this is the rational thing to do, however only in theory. In practice, people won't be disciplined about isolating vulnerable ones in the first phase, thus leading to disaster.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#2

Post by planetzero »

This might work. But how many people will die in the process? There are many cases of young people, with seemingly no prior health issues, dying after getting severe issues as a result of the virus.

On top of that, you can't guarantee that young people will only get it. With no travel restrictions, it can easily spread to the elderly.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#7

Post by DanBC »

planetzero wrote: post #2

This might work. But how many people will die in the process? There are many cases of young people, with seemingly no prior health issues, dying after getting severe issues as a result of the virus. On top of that, you can't guarantee that young people will only get it. With no travel restrictions, it can easily spread to the elderly.

It kills maybe 1% to 2% of people under 50 with no comorbitities.

If we assume everyone in the UK is under 50 and there are 60m people and we want to infect 60% of them that's 36m people infected, and 1% of that is 360,000 dead.

That's ignoring all the people who do have comorbitieis (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc), and all the people over 50.

It's also ignoring all the people who eg get into road traffic accidents and need an ICU bed, which won't be available if we cram hospitals full of covid-19 patients.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#8

Post by Zenst »

boznz wrote: post #3

unless the world plans to stay isolated until there is a cure this may be the alternative that doesnt also bankrupt a lot of businesses and put people out of work.

There will be pockets that will see this carry on for years globally. Currently it is mostly prevalent in climates in their winter phase months, and UK just entered spring.

Then there is this virus mutating, could it mutate into something less harmful, or something more harmful.

Past pandemic the spanish flu saw the initial infection decline in the summer and in the winter saw a higher wave of infections and deaths - which would be at a time when health services with climate phases tend to be less able to handle extra volume.

Policy seems to be around accepting people will die, no escaping that or dressing that up and to manage infected and control the spread and managing response/restrictions accordingly. So by managing the effected numbers needing medical intervention and dragging out the first seasonal phase so that the summer months lul can be used to level out the impact down the line.

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