4 ms·
As I've said for months, the sooner we get to herd immunity, the better. The US literally can't do testing and tracing to save their own lives. Yet people stil
by redis_mlc 6y ago
As I've said for months, the sooner we get to herd immunity, the better.
The US literally can't do testing and tracing to save their own lives. Yet people still pretend otherwise, like the tulip or bitcoin manias.
- jpmoral 6y agoWhat evidence do we have that infection confers immunity?
- guenthert 6y agoHow do you recover from a virus if not by becoming immune to it? Immune here in the sense of being able to fight it, not in the sense of being unaffected (the letter will clearly not happen, nor does it need to).
- danaliv 6y agoOk, how long does that immunity last? Is it forever? Is it two months? Can we actually achieve herd immunity or would we be signing up for a reinfection merry-go-round?
- redis_mlc 6y ago1) Every disease in history has conferred immunity except for HIV, which is chronic. 2) What is your alternative? The US lost to mother nature.
- loktarogar 6y agoYes, but the question is how long that immunity lasts for. Not all diseases provide immunity forever.
- klmadfejno 6y ago> Every disease in history has conferred immunity except for HIV, which is chronic. This is not true, nor a generally good guideline to think about things. Coronaviruses generally confer short immunity periods. > 2) What is your alternative? The US lost to mother nature. In the very least, being aware that long term herd immunity is not a viable goal.
- nikofeyn 6y ago> This is not true, nor a generally good guideline to think about things. Coronaviruses generally confer short immunity periods. would the common cold be a good example? the common cold is caused by a few different coronaviruses, and it's not uncommon for people to get a cold at least once a year or even multiple times a year.
- fzeroracer 6y agoYou're right, every disease we catch gives us complete immunity. That's why when you catch the flu once, you're immune to it forever. I'm being sardonic here because you have a severe misunderstanding of how immunity and our immune system actually works. Some diseases (like the chicken pox) we never truly beat, it just becomes latent. Other diseases we only become briefly immune.
- redis_mlc 6y ago> That's why when you catch the flu once, you're immune to it forever. Each flu season, a new strain appears. Get your facts straight.
- socalnate1 6y agoIf we need 70% of the US population to get infected to reach herd immunity, and COVID has an infection fatality rate of .05%; this will kill about 1.2 Million people. I, for one, am hopeful that we can get through this without that many deaths.
- beezle 6y agoRecent studies have shown that covid antibodies disappear very quickly in a fairly high percentage of positive cases. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-ra...
- tuesdayrain 6y ago> Yet people still pretend otherwise, like the tulip or bitcoin manias. America's lack of testing is like Bitcoin? What an amusing and irrelevant example.
- triceratops 6y agoI do not want to contract the virus at all if I can help it, herd immunity be damned.
- redis_mlc 6y agoThat's not an option in the US. Even if there was a vaccine tomorrow, there's a lot of anti-vaxers in this country.
- bootcampwhere 6y agoTulip mania was a result of a government policy to guarantee a price floor for bulbs, there was nothing irrational about it. Bitcoin is one of the greatest inventions of the century.