9 ms·

Florida is really thinking outside the box. Schools will have no problem opening up if children have herd immunity. This is the type of creative thinking school

Florida is really thinking outside the box. Schools will have no problem opening up if children have herd immunity. This is the type of creative thinking school administrators have been looking for. /s

slackfan 6y ago
This except completely serious. People getting herd immunity involves people, you know, actually contracting the disease.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Protect the vulnerable (no sending Covid positive patients into their living spaces!) while allowing low risk population to develop and overcome the virus. This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Of course proposing it publicly means to be smeared by the media and politicians and twitter blue checks, who always have our best interests in mind. Does this solution cause no pain and death? Of course not! It’s about causing the least amount of pain long term, including the externalities of our actions.
  - phantom0308 6y ago
    There isn't enough evidence of long term immunity to make herd immunity a sensible strategy. It's smeared by the media b/c it's way less preferable than the alternative of containing it like nearly every developed country in the world. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-stud...
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      “This strategy would kill over half a million Americans” isn’t even really a smear, it’s an accurate description of why the herd immunity strategy is bad.
      - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
        It's neither a smear nor an accurate description. It's fear mongering.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        They said the same about tens of thousands dying; we’re now at 141k dead Americans. If you want to dismiss it as “fear mongering” that’s your prerogative, just don’t be surprised that most people find this unconvincing.
  - searine 6y ago
    >This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Logical if all that matters to you is numbers and money. Lets not hide behind words. This logic mean death. You are conducting a blood sacrifice to ensure people don't have to alter their behavior. If you're so gung-ho to get to herd immunity, how about you volunteer to be on the front lines?
    - dexen 6y ago
      The alternative - hiding people in homes until vaccine is widely available - means death. From alcohol & substance abuse, from increased suicides, from domestic violence, and so on. Extended period of being prevented from running your business (or out of employment) without steady income, and bottled up at home is a major stresor and silent killer. The hospitals already reported significantly elevated suicides. There is no magical strategy to stave off all the problems; balancing the risks and managing precautions as our knowledge expands is the correct, if hard to politically sell, way to go.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        Opening up without restrictions would kill somewhere between 500,000 and 1,300,000 Americans, assuming that the CFR doesn’t rise above 1% (an optimistic assumption). If you think lockdowns will kill that many Americans, then provide your sources.
        __blockcipher__ 6y ago
        I think you mean IFR not CFR. The new estimates of HIT factoring in widespread t-cell cross-reactivity in humans that have NEVER been exposed to a SARS-like virus nor anyone who was themselves infected with one, implies that the true HIT is somewhere around 25%. Do the math on the US with an IFR of .3% and an HIT of 25%. That’s what a likely scenario looks like. It means a few hundred thousand dead. As an upper bound do the same math with .9% IFR and 25% HIT. BTW you should also consider the risk that lockdown puts the body into a state where it is more susceptible to bad COVID-19 outcomes, due to vitamin d deficiency, lack of nitric oxide, lack of exercise, reduced sleep, social isolation, unemployment, and an unprecedented environment of widespread fear&hysteria. Also consider the lives we have already lost when calculating the delta between containment versus not practicing containment. IMO containment is a foolish and infantile strategy which makes us perpetually at risk of an outbreak. Population immunity is the stable and logical solution. Banking on a vaccine is an awful idea, doubly so in a country where we can’t mandate a vaccine without plunging ourselves into civil war. Vaccine-attributable herd immunity only works if a bunch of people get vaccinated. Granted the t-cell reactivity findings alter the calculus there, but we would need to vaccinate people who do not demonstrate cross reactivity in order for that fact to change the number of required vaccines.
  - jkinudsjknds 6y ago
    That's not how it works. If you had 100% immunity in the young, the old would still be at relatively similar risk because of homophily in social networks. That is, old people spend most of their time with old people. Herd immunity for the general population requires a homogenous mixture of social interactions across those infected. Keeping the vulnerable protected sounds good and all, but in the case of, say, children, the vulnerable is the teaching staff.
  - phantom0308 6y ago
    Protecting the vulnerable has never actually worked. In theory it's possible, but it would require constantly testing nursing home workers that don't have the money to do this and an administration that hasn't shown the ability to support it. Every area that's had a significant level of spread has had issues where nursing home care workers brought in the virus from the community. The exception is Hong Kong where nursing home residents were quarantined in hospitals for significant periods. This presupposes the leadership to setup a system like this and the willingness of nursing home residents to be isolated for long periods of time. If we had either of those things we'd be able to contain the virus in the broader population.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The problem is that this is incredibly hard to do. It’s much easier to protect the vulnerable if the routes for community transmission are reduced or eliminated; if society is acting as normal it’s really hard to stop those specific transmission vectors. Given that we can’t convince people to wear masks, I’m dubious about any plan that requires more planning and communication. We also have no idea if herd immunity will work, or for how long. Lots of coronaviruses confer either no immunity or a short term one; remember that a lot of common cold cases are coronaviruses too, and you can catch those repeatedly. Also, pursuing herd immunity involves infecting basically 20-50% of the population, a strategy that might kill 500k to 1.5mil Americans (assuming CFR stays at 1%, an optimistic assumption in this scenario) We also have no idea what the health impacts for non-fatal cases are. Lots of patients are surviving with heart & lung damage; long term impacts TBD. Crippling an entire generation from the get go would both be tragic, and would put lie to the idea that not opening schools is “letting them fall behind”.
  - akamia 6y ago
    The problem with this approach is it also assumes that overcoming the virus means a return to 100% health with no long term impact. We're already seeing that it can lead to other long term conditions. I have a friend who is being treated for heart damage after having COVID. I'm in a low risk population but just because I'm not likely to die from it doesn't mean it's completely harmless to me.
- Retric 6y ago
  Vaccination is likely an option for long term COVID-19 herd immunity. The mutation rate is shockingly low, so a nationwide focus on containment was the best option early on. It’s still possible without wrecking the economy. The US seems to be using the worst off all possible options. However, several countries have succeeded and demonstrate it’s possible to succeed.
  - ArkVark 6y ago
    Assuming we capture about 10% of COVID instances as actual cases, then the US is getting 770,000 new instances a day. Stockholm burnt itself out with 20% of the population getting immunity (determined via antibody testing). So (328,000,000 - 37,000,000) / 770,000 = 378 days until herd immunity, considering the existing cases. What is more likely is that the case numbers will ramp up significantly though, to over 100,000 per day at some point. In that case the USA will have herd immunity within the year. This is nothing new. Influenza hits about 20% of the population (60 million people) as well and then burns out for the season. We struggle yearly with keeping influenza out of nursing homes and with the surge of hospitalization that it creates. The good news is that right now there are no excess deaths in the USA and that hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space (more beds can be always be converted to ICU, ICU capacity is not infexible, same as is done for influenza).
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      ~150 million US people get the influenza vaccine each year! You seem to be playing match the numbers up where they fit and celebrate.
    - bonzini 6y ago
      There are already hospitals in Texas and I think Florida that are rejecting patients because they are full, that's when fatality rate and excess mortality kicks in. What kills you isn't suboptimal care, it's the impossibility of getting any treatment.
    - ModernMech 6y ago
      > hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space If true, what do you make of the following reports? 7/16 - "Manatee County's hospitals hit capacity as COVID-19 cases continue to surge" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hospitals-hit-capacity-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-surge/ar-BB16N919 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hos... 7/16 - "ICU fills up at St. Luke's Nampa hospital, meaning patients must be diverted to Boise" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-lukes-nampa-hospital-meaning-patients-must-be-diverted-to-boise/ar-BB16PYd1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-... 7/6 - "Four Tampa-area hospitals at maximum ICU capacity" https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-at-maximum-icu-capacity/ar-BB16oom0 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-... 7/6 - "Hospitals in Florida, Texas and Arizona Are Almost at Capacity as Coronavirus Cases Surge" https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surge/ https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surg...
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  I'd be guessing that very early in the quest towards herd immunity the medical institutions would be overrun and the end result of that would be a whole lot more dead people than the lockdown scenario. From what it appears we know about the virus so far, a vaccine is the only sane way to possibly hope to reach herd immunity.
- phantom0308 6y ago
  Why would any country want herd immunity from infection when nearly every developed country has demonstrated the virus can be contained without such a large loss of life? It's not as if the specter of maxed out hospitals on the news for months on end is going to help the economy.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Exactly. Absent a vaccine, herd immunity is the failure condition that occurs when a virus has infected as many people as it can within a population. It is the default baseline against which all interventions should be compared.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      If immunity to the disease is not long-lasting (> 3 months), herd immunity is likely impossible. There are plenty of viruses that can reinfect people who have recovered from them (Coronaviruses being a common example of these) for which we have no herd immunity.
      - gridlockd 6y ago
        Immunity isn't a binary, neither is herd immunity. While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore.
        claudeganon 6y ago
        > While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. The disease hasn’t been around long enough to make this claim. > Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore. This is true, but depends on the duration of immunity and a more uniform global response (or very tight border and quarantine adherence). Ongoing, sporadic COVID crises would still be pretty disruptive unless we have highly effective therapeutics.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- claudeganon 6y ago
  There’s already evidence of reinfection with COVID, so herd immunity for the disease is unlikely. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...
  - tux1968 6y ago
    Don't vaccines require that mechanism in order to be effective?
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      Vaccines can either reduce the severity of disease or grant immunity for a period roughly comparable to the window of reinfection. Depending on the duration of immunity, a successful vaccine may require multiple doses per year.
- toast0 6y ago
  The problem with this plan is that it's very hard to do safely. Let's say I don't care about deaths from COVID-19 that were untreatable; I still care about excess deaths tyat were treatable, but don't get treated because hospitals are overwelmed by patients or overwelmed because medical staff is sick. To avoid that, you basically have to limit the number of beds COVID patients are using and modulate the infection rate to keep the beds in use close to the limit without going over. Of course, modulating the rate is difficult, because people's behavior is hard to modulate. Also the demand for new beds shows up about 2 weeks after infection, so you have to modulate today based on what your bed capacity looks like then.
  - matz1 6y ago
    Hospital are frequently overwhelmed in the past, nothing new, at least at current situation is no more overwhelmed than what has frequently happen in the past.
    - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
      And worth noting that there is not a whole lot hospitals can do anyway. The overwhelming majority have COVID-19 that is so mild that they never would go to a hospital. Of those that have more serious symptoms, some will be benefit from being given oxygen. There are very few people who warrant invasive ventilation, and those that do have very bad odds anyway. The meme around hospital overrun is just that, a meme. Especially given everywhere having at least a small percentage of positive serology tests. I doubt anywhere in the US would get truly overrun with uninhibited spread at this point.
TheCuckedKing 6y ago
Only 20 people under the age of 18 have died from covid19 in the U.S. In the state of California there isn't a even a single one! We know the flu is far deadlier for children...
wyldfire 6y ago
I know you're joking, but I was surprised to learn [1] that there are cases pointing to the likelihood that recovery from infection will not necessarily lead to immunity from subsequent infection. [1] https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...
jimmaswell 6y ago
The Health Ministry of Switzerland has said children cannot transmit covid at all. Along with the fact that children being affected by the virus is extremely rare, it would seem like the only concern is for adult staff to maintain precautions with each other, which seems much safer than e.g. working in a close quarters kitchen line, which we've been allowing all along.

slackfan 6y ago

This except completely serious. People getting herd immunity involves people, you know, actually contracting the disease.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Protect the vulnerable (no sending Covid positive patients into their living spaces!) while allowing low risk population to develop and overcome the virus. This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Of course proposing it publicly means to be smeared by the media and politicians and twitter blue checks, who always have our best interests in mind. Does this solution cause no pain and death? Of course not! It’s about causing the least amount of pain long term, including the externalities of our actions.
- phantom0308 6y ago
  There isn't enough evidence of long term immunity to make herd immunity a sensible strategy. It's smeared by the media b/c it's way less preferable than the alternative of containing it like nearly every developed country in the world. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/immunity-to-covid-19-uk-stud...
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    “This strategy would kill over half a million Americans” isn’t even really a smear, it’s an accurate description of why the herd immunity strategy is bad.
    - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
      It's neither a smear nor an accurate description. It's fear mongering.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        They said the same about tens of thousands dying; we’re now at 141k dead Americans. If you want to dismiss it as “fear mongering” that’s your prerogative, just don’t be surprised that most people find this unconvincing.
- searine 6y ago
  >This seems like the most logical way to combat issue, as opposed to hiding and hoping it goes away. Logical if all that matters to you is numbers and money. Lets not hide behind words. This logic mean death. You are conducting a blood sacrifice to ensure people don't have to alter their behavior. If you're so gung-ho to get to herd immunity, how about you volunteer to be on the front lines?
  - dexen 6y ago
    The alternative - hiding people in homes until vaccine is widely available - means death. From alcohol & substance abuse, from increased suicides, from domestic violence, and so on. Extended period of being prevented from running your business (or out of employment) without steady income, and bottled up at home is a major stresor and silent killer. The hospitals already reported significantly elevated suicides. There is no magical strategy to stave off all the problems; balancing the risks and managing precautions as our knowledge expands is the correct, if hard to politically sell, way to go.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Opening up without restrictions would kill somewhere between 500,000 and 1,300,000 Americans, assuming that the CFR doesn’t rise above 1% (an optimistic assumption). If you think lockdowns will kill that many Americans, then provide your sources.
      - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
        I think you mean IFR not CFR. The new estimates of HIT factoring in widespread t-cell cross-reactivity in humans that have NEVER been exposed to a SARS-like virus nor anyone who was themselves infected with one, implies that the true HIT is somewhere around 25%. Do the math on the US with an IFR of .3% and an HIT of 25%. That’s what a likely scenario looks like. It means a few hundred thousand dead. As an upper bound do the same math with .9% IFR and 25% HIT. BTW you should also consider the risk that lockdown puts the body into a state where it is more susceptible to bad COVID-19 outcomes, due to vitamin d deficiency, lack of nitric oxide, lack of exercise, reduced sleep, social isolation, unemployment, and an unprecedented environment of widespread fear&hysteria. Also consider the lives we have already lost when calculating the delta between containment versus not practicing containment. IMO containment is a foolish and infantile strategy which makes us perpetually at risk of an outbreak. Population immunity is the stable and logical solution. Banking on a vaccine is an awful idea, doubly so in a country where we can’t mandate a vaccine without plunging ourselves into civil war. Vaccine-attributable herd immunity only works if a bunch of people get vaccinated. Granted the t-cell reactivity findings alter the calculus there, but we would need to vaccinate people who do not demonstrate cross reactivity in order for that fact to change the number of required vaccines.
- jkinudsjknds 6y ago
  That's not how it works. If you had 100% immunity in the young, the old would still be at relatively similar risk because of homophily in social networks. That is, old people spend most of their time with old people. Herd immunity for the general population requires a homogenous mixture of social interactions across those infected. Keeping the vulnerable protected sounds good and all, but in the case of, say, children, the vulnerable is the teaching staff.
- phantom0308 6y ago
  Protecting the vulnerable has never actually worked. In theory it's possible, but it would require constantly testing nursing home workers that don't have the money to do this and an administration that hasn't shown the ability to support it. Every area that's had a significant level of spread has had issues where nursing home care workers brought in the virus from the community. The exception is Hong Kong where nursing home residents were quarantined in hospitals for significant periods. This presupposes the leadership to setup a system like this and the willingness of nursing home residents to be isolated for long periods of time. If we had either of those things we'd be able to contain the virus in the broader population.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The problem is that this is incredibly hard to do. It’s much easier to protect the vulnerable if the routes for community transmission are reduced or eliminated; if society is acting as normal it’s really hard to stop those specific transmission vectors. Given that we can’t convince people to wear masks, I’m dubious about any plan that requires more planning and communication. We also have no idea if herd immunity will work, or for how long. Lots of coronaviruses confer either no immunity or a short term one; remember that a lot of common cold cases are coronaviruses too, and you can catch those repeatedly. Also, pursuing herd immunity involves infecting basically 20-50% of the population, a strategy that might kill 500k to 1.5mil Americans (assuming CFR stays at 1%, an optimistic assumption in this scenario) We also have no idea what the health impacts for non-fatal cases are. Lots of patients are surviving with heart & lung damage; long term impacts TBD. Crippling an entire generation from the get go would both be tragic, and would put lie to the idea that not opening schools is “letting them fall behind”.
- akamia 6y ago
  The problem with this approach is it also assumes that overcoming the virus means a return to 100% health with no long term impact. We're already seeing that it can lead to other long term conditions. I have a friend who is being treated for heart damage after having COVID. I'm in a low risk population but just because I'm not likely to die from it doesn't mean it's completely harmless to me.
Retric 6y ago
Vaccination is likely an option for long term COVID-19 herd immunity. The mutation rate is shockingly low, so a nationwide focus on containment was the best option early on. It’s still possible without wrecking the economy. The US seems to be using the worst off all possible options. However, several countries have succeeded and demonstrate it’s possible to succeed.
- ArkVark 6y ago
  Assuming we capture about 10% of COVID instances as actual cases, then the US is getting 770,000 new instances a day. Stockholm burnt itself out with 20% of the population getting immunity (determined via antibody testing). So (328,000,000 - 37,000,000) / 770,000 = 378 days until herd immunity, considering the existing cases. What is more likely is that the case numbers will ramp up significantly though, to over 100,000 per day at some point. In that case the USA will have herd immunity within the year. This is nothing new. Influenza hits about 20% of the population (60 million people) as well and then burns out for the season. We struggle yearly with keeping influenza out of nursing homes and with the surge of hospitalization that it creates. The good news is that right now there are no excess deaths in the USA and that hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space (more beds can be always be converted to ICU, ICU capacity is not infexible, same as is done for influenza).
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    ~150 million US people get the influenza vaccine each year! You seem to be playing match the numbers up where they fit and celebrate.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    There are already hospitals in Texas and I think Florida that are rejecting patients because they are full, that's when fatality rate and excess mortality kicks in. What kills you isn't suboptimal care, it's the impossibility of getting any treatment.
  - ModernMech 6y ago
    > hospitals all over the country are handling the virus and not running out of space If true, what do you make of the following reports? 7/16 - "Manatee County's hospitals hit capacity as COVID-19 cases continue to surge" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hospitals-hit-capacity-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-surge/ar-BB16N919 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/manatee-countys-hos... 7/16 - "ICU fills up at St. Luke's Nampa hospital, meaning patients must be diverted to Boise" https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-lukes-nampa-hospital-meaning-patients-must-be-diverted-to-boise/ar-BB16PYd1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/icu-fills-up-at-st-... 7/6 - "Four Tampa-area hospitals at maximum ICU capacity" https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-at-maximum-icu-capacity/ar-BB16oom0 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/four-tampa-area-hospitals-... 7/6 - "Hospitals in Florida, Texas and Arizona Are Almost at Capacity as Coronavirus Cases Surge" https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surge/ https://time.com/5863564/hospitals-capacity-coronavirus-surg...
BLKNSLVR 6y ago
I'd be guessing that very early in the quest towards herd immunity the medical institutions would be overrun and the end result of that would be a whole lot more dead people than the lockdown scenario. From what it appears we know about the virus so far, a vaccine is the only sane way to possibly hope to reach herd immunity.
phantom0308 6y ago
Why would any country want herd immunity from infection when nearly every developed country has demonstrated the virus can be contained without such a large loss of life? It's not as if the specter of maxed out hospitals on the news for months on end is going to help the economy.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Exactly. Absent a vaccine, herd immunity is the failure condition that occurs when a virus has infected as many people as it can within a population. It is the default baseline against which all interventions should be compared.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    If immunity to the disease is not long-lasting (> 3 months), herd immunity is likely impossible. There are plenty of viruses that can reinfect people who have recovered from them (Coronaviruses being a common example of these) for which we have no herd immunity.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      Immunity isn't a binary, neither is herd immunity. While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        > While there are reports of reinfection, those cases are quite rare. The disease hasn’t been around long enough to make this claim. > Even a modest degree of immunity can significantly lower spread. In France, Spain, Germany, you still have hundreds of cases every day, but they don't grow to thousands of cases anymore. This is true, but depends on the duration of immunity and a more uniform global response (or very tight border and quarantine adherence). Ongoing, sporadic COVID crises would still be pretty disruptive unless we have highly effective therapeutics.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
claudeganon 6y ago
There’s already evidence of reinfection with COVID, so herd immunity for the disease is unlikely. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...
- tux1968 6y ago
  Don't vaccines require that mechanism in order to be effective?
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Vaccines can either reduce the severity of disease or grant immunity for a period roughly comparable to the window of reinfection. Depending on the duration of immunity, a successful vaccine may require multiple doses per year.
toast0 6y ago
The problem with this plan is that it's very hard to do safely. Let's say I don't care about deaths from COVID-19 that were untreatable; I still care about excess deaths tyat were treatable, but don't get treated because hospitals are overwelmed by patients or overwelmed because medical staff is sick. To avoid that, you basically have to limit the number of beds COVID patients are using and modulate the infection rate to keep the beds in use close to the limit without going over. Of course, modulating the rate is difficult, because people's behavior is hard to modulate. Also the demand for new beds shows up about 2 weeks after infection, so you have to modulate today based on what your bed capacity looks like then.
- matz1 6y ago
  Hospital are frequently overwhelmed in the past, nothing new, at least at current situation is no more overwhelmed than what has frequently happen in the past.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    And worth noting that there is not a whole lot hospitals can do anyway. The overwhelming majority have COVID-19 that is so mild that they never would go to a hospital. Of those that have more serious symptoms, some will be benefit from being given oxygen. There are very few people who warrant invasive ventilation, and those that do have very bad odds anyway. The meme around hospital overrun is just that, a meme. Especially given everywhere having at least a small percentage of positive serology tests. I doubt anywhere in the US would get truly overrun with uninhibited spread at this point.

TheCuckedKing 6y ago

Only 20 people under the age of 18 have died from covid19 in the U.S. In the state of California there isn't a even a single one! We know the flu is far deadlier for children...

wyldfire 6y ago

I know you're joking, but I was surprised to learn [1] that there are cases pointing to the likelihood that recovery from infection will not necessarily lead to immunity from subsequent infection. [1] https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic...

jimmaswell 6y ago

The Health Ministry of Switzerland has said children cannot transmit covid at all. Along with the fact that children being affected by the virus is extremely rare, it would seem like the only concern is for adult staff to maintain precautions with each other, which seems much safer than e.g. working in a close quarters kitchen line, which we've been allowing all along.