3 ms·

It it was possible to have a very reliable predictor of who will take the infection in an asymptomatic way, or with very trivial symptoms, a plan could be to in

It it was possible to have a very reliable predictor of who will take the infection in an asymptomatic way, or with very trivial symptoms, a plan could be to infect all those, that are believed to be at least 50% of the population, to create a solid immunity base in the society.

seemslegit 7y ago
That's basically the UK "herd immunity" which experts think is kinda crazy, also it's not even known that a long-lasting immunity is created for this virus in people who are infected either symptomatically or not. iirc it requires numbers closer to 2/3rds of a population.
- antirez 7y ago
  Nope it's very different than the UK pseudo plan (apparently they don't really have such plan). I mean, if there was a simple way to test _before_ people get infected, if they'll develop just very mild symptoms, we could do it. Even if you need more than 50%, 50% is still a lot of a barrier that lowers the virus R0 a lot.
  - seemslegit 7y ago
    Even if there was - testing and controlled-infecting 50% of the population would be a huge effort and probably not shorter than isolating old people and allowing an uncontained infection to burn through. But the big problem is that it might not even help, the worst case scenario is that absent a vaccine the virus becomes just a more infectious and deadlier cold that people risk getting every season.
adrianmonk 7y ago
It's an interesting idea, but seems like that proposal would have to compared to the alternative of vaccination. There's already a vaccine which has been created and which entered the first phase of trials today (https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/first-stage-of-covid-19-vaccine-testing-gets-under-way/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/first-stage-of-covid-...). If we're going for a radical plan (which, hope you're not offended, is how I'd characterize your proposal), then just skipping those trials and going straight to giving people that vaccine should be on the table. So then you'd have to compare safety and efficacy of that against this vaccine. I'm not an expert at all, but it seems like we basically don't know the answer to any of those questions. * We think that you can't get reinfected once you've had COVID-19. But we aren't sure. * I don't think a method of predicting symptom severity (like you suggested) has been created, so we don't know its reliability. * We also don't know if any of the new vaccines are safe. * Nor do we know if any of the new vaccines are effective.

seemslegit 7y ago

That's basically the UK "herd immunity" which experts think is kinda crazy, also it's not even known that a long-lasting immunity is created for this virus in people who are infected either symptomatically or not. iirc it requires numbers closer to 2/3rds of a population.

antirez 7y ago
Nope it's very different than the UK pseudo plan (apparently they don't really have such plan). I mean, if there was a simple way to test _before_ people get infected, if they'll develop just very mild symptoms, we could do it. Even if you need more than 50%, 50% is still a lot of a barrier that lowers the virus R0 a lot.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  Even if there was - testing and controlled-infecting 50% of the population would be a huge effort and probably not shorter than isolating old people and allowing an uncontained infection to burn through. But the big problem is that it might not even help, the worst case scenario is that absent a vaccine the virus becomes just a more infectious and deadlier cold that people risk getting every season.

adrianmonk 7y ago

It's an interesting idea, but seems like that proposal would have to compared to the alternative of vaccination. There's already a vaccine which has been created and which entered the first phase of trials today (https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/first-stage-of-covid-19-vaccine-testing-gets-under-way/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/first-stage-of-covid-...). If we're going for a radical plan (which, hope you're not offended, is how I'd characterize your proposal), then just skipping those trials and going straight to giving people that vaccine should be on the table. So then you'd have to compare safety and efficacy of that against this vaccine. I'm not an expert at all, but it seems like we basically don't know the answer to any of those questions. * We think that you can't get reinfected once you've had COVID-19. But we aren't sure. * I don't think a method of predicting symptom severity (like you suggested) has been created, so we don't know its reliability. * We also don't know if any of the new vaccines are safe. * Nor do we know if any of the new vaccines are effective.