A (possible) solution to Covid-19

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #223

danieltillett wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically they don’t provided we can get the herd immunity up to a decent level in the rest of the population. While it would be a good idea if the mutated strain was no more dangerous than a common cold coronavirus, we could drive the dangerous strains to extinction without having to infect the vulnerable.

Very difficult to get herd immunity up to a decent enough level without putting the vulnerable portion of the population in great danger though. Most countries are approaching something like 0.1% or 0.2% of the population having been infected. Herd immunity requires 70% - 80% immunity. About 350x - 800x more than what's happened already. Also the whole thing presumes that immunity is lasting. Some of the data is show…

Post by stOneskull » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #99

coconut_crab wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not a professional, so what I write below might be wrong) Having more time to develop a vaccine or effective treatments is essential, it doesn't have to be herd immunity. Plus in countries where covid19 rate is low enough, social distancing can be helpful for finding and isolating clusters to suppress the epidemic.

Of course, there are two ways out of this, herd or vaccine. The above is a variation of herd that may result in less deaths. The real problem is that waiting until a vaccine is just not even remotely realistic for so many reasons that it's not even funny. We could end up causing more indirect deaths with social isolation than we could possibly imagine, worst case being a huge collapse in the economy results in a larg…

Post by mrfusion » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #80

jbermudes wrote: post #12

I'm glad people are realizing that all this social distancing is merely a pause button on the virus. Once we press play on society, exponential growth will happen again and we will have effectively rolled back the clock until we reach herd immunity through things like the OP's suggestion. At least this next time we'll hopefully have more PPE.

I'd much rather live in a world where everyone is required to wear masks all the time than live in a world where we are all told to stay home all the time. I believe it's also well established that any measures taken to slow the spread of a new virus will always result in fewer total deaths, in that sense quarantining is much more effective than just being a pause button.

Post by _-___________-_ » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #206

_-___________-_ wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP literally opens with a misinterpreted statistic. It links to an article about CFR and claims that the values are IFR instead of CFR. This is not "getting caught up on something", I'm pointing out a fundamental error. Most serious estimates of IFR are between 0.1 and 0.6%. The OP should be edited to either correctly state that COVID-19 kills between 1 and 3.5% of identified cases , or be updated to use numbers…

These IFR numbers you quote are also incorrect as there are many people infected who have not yet had time to die. The best estimate probably comes from South Korea (they seem to be picking up nearly all cases with their massive contact tracking and testing) where the death rate is at 1.8% and trending higher.

Post by TuringNYC » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 12:13 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #185

yoz-y wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or until something like 95% of population has been infected and we know for sure that those who already had the disease can not spread it anymore.

What about people born after that point? As immune people die over time from other causes, and as people are born without immunity, the percent of the population with immunity from having had it falls. Non-vaccine acquired herd immunity is temporary.