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> Until now the line I have kept hearing is that there is no such thing as herd immunity except that which is realized through universal immunization. You were

> Until now the line I have kept hearing is that there is no such thing as herd immunity except that which is realized through universal immunization. You were either hearing the wrong information or misunderstanding it. Herd immunity is absolutely real, and can occur if a virus infects enough people (or enough people are vaccinated). When more people are immune, it will be harder for the virus to spread to a new host. When enough are immune, the virus dies out. But since the death rate of COVID is so high, encouraging people to go outside and get infected in the name of achieving herd immunity (an approach often spread by the right wing) would likely cause millions of deaths, especially because the US has limited hospital capacity. This isn't even mentioning that we don't know the long-term effects of the hundreds of millions of others who would have recovered from COVID. Herd immunity through vaccination will kill or harm very few people in comparison, given that only 1 in a million suffer side effects from vaccines on average.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
> You were either hearing the wrong information or misunderstanding it. Herd immunity is absolutely real, and can occur if a virus infects enough people (or enough people are vaccinated). I was hearing it from people arguing against the Swedish approach of managing the virus without lockdowns. "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" (i.e. actively trying to accelerate the spread and doing nothing to minimize exposure for high risk groups) is not something I see being seriously advocated even by lockdown opponents, though it is often used as a strawman version of their arguments.
- tylerhou 6y ago
  > "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but it's not too far from what some people are suggesting. The fact is, without containment measures, there will likely be hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.
  - XorNot 6y ago
    Millions. There will be millions of needless deaths. Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. The staff thing is the one people seem to completely not get: hospital staff are under absolutely no obligations to keep working overtime shifts. They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. Then you get to wait 24 years till we can grow and train some more, minimum.
    - AndrewBissell 6y ago
      > Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. Seem to be some confounding variables at play here besides "are you locked down or not?" > They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. This is a fantasy scenario. Most nurses are probably in no financial position to do this and leaving to find another job is a dicey prospect right now. I agree that we should not put the hospitals or their staff under undue stress which is why it's such a crime that COVID is being used for cover to furlough staff and impose budget cuts. The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832
      - tylerhou 6y ago
        > Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. According to Oxford and NYTimes, Minnesota has relatively lax lockdowns compared to other states: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-stat.... States in the US with more lockdowns also have lower hospitalization and case rates, which suggests that lockdowns are at least correlated with lower infections. To prove causation, you might want more evidence, but to me the mechanism of how lockdowns prevent infections is pretty clear. > The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 This is lazy analysis. Like another responder said, national averages don't matter much when individual cities are being overwhelmed. A tech analogy: You can't say that your service is healthy just because its median latency is 50ms. If the p99 latency is a minute, then your service has performance issues. Second, because of containment measures, the prevalence of the cold and flu (and other contagious diseases) has also gone down. 2019 is not the correct baseline to make a comparison -- 2019 with lockdowns (and no COVID) would be.
XorNot 6y ago
Herd immunity through infection without a vaccine has never been a serious concept. The scientific community only produced any literature on it in response to requests by governments about what would happen if they did absolutely nothing.
- tylerhou 6y ago
  I agree: herd immunity through infection without a vaccine has never been seriously accepted by the scientific community. However, that has not stopped Trump from alluding to a herd immunity approach: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/29/trumps-been-publicly-indicating-his-openness-herd-immunity-strategy-months/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/29/trumps-be... During his town hall before the election, Trump even claimed that "over period of time... [developing] a herd mentality" would cause the coronavirus to "go away." From context, a reasonable viewer could assume that Trump meant "herd immunity." https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/16/trump-says-with-a-herd-mentality-covid-19-coronavirus-will-go-away/?sh=5e3ee7c91dde https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/16/trump-says-...

AndrewBissell 6y ago

> You were either hearing the wrong information or misunderstanding it. Herd immunity is absolutely real, and can occur if a virus infects enough people (or enough people are vaccinated). I was hearing it from people arguing against the Swedish approach of managing the virus without lockdowns. "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" (i.e. actively trying to accelerate the spread and doing nothing to minimize exposure for high risk groups) is not something I see being seriously advocated even by lockdown opponents, though it is often used as a strawman version of their arguments.

tylerhou 6y ago
> "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but it's not too far from what some people are suggesting. The fact is, without containment measures, there will likely be hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.
- XorNot 6y ago
  Millions. There will be millions of needless deaths. Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. The staff thing is the one people seem to completely not get: hospital staff are under absolutely no obligations to keep working overtime shifts. They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. Then you get to wait 24 years till we can grow and train some more, minimum.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    > Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. Seem to be some confounding variables at play here besides "are you locked down or not?" > They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. This is a fantasy scenario. Most nurses are probably in no financial position to do this and leaving to find another job is a dicey prospect right now. I agree that we should not put the hospitals or their staff under undue stress which is why it's such a crime that COVID is being used for cover to furlough staff and impose budget cuts. The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832
    - tylerhou 6y ago
      > Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. According to Oxford and NYTimes, Minnesota has relatively lax lockdowns compared to other states: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-stat.... States in the US with more lockdowns also have lower hospitalization and case rates, which suggests that lockdowns are at least correlated with lower infections. To prove causation, you might want more evidence, but to me the mechanism of how lockdowns prevent infections is pretty clear. > The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 This is lazy analysis. Like another responder said, national averages don't matter much when individual cities are being overwhelmed. A tech analogy: You can't say that your service is healthy just because its median latency is 50ms. If the p99 latency is a minute, then your service has performance issues. Second, because of containment measures, the prevalence of the cold and flu (and other contagious diseases) has also gone down. 2019 is not the correct baseline to make a comparison -- 2019 with lockdowns (and no COVID) would be.

XorNot 6y ago

Herd immunity through infection without a vaccine has never been a serious concept. The scientific community only produced any literature on it in response to requests by governments about what would happen if they did absolutely nothing.

tylerhou 6y ago
I agree: herd immunity through infection without a vaccine has never been seriously accepted by the scientific community. However, that has not stopped Trump from alluding to a herd immunity approach: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/29/trumps-been-publicly-indicating-his-openness-herd-immunity-strategy-months/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/29/trumps-be... During his town hall before the election, Trump even claimed that "over period of time... [developing] a herd mentality" would cause the coronavirus to "go away." From context, a reasonable viewer could assume that Trump meant "herd immunity." https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/16/trump-says-with-a-herd-mentality-covid-19-coronavirus-will-go-away/?sh=5e3ee7c91dde https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/16/trump-says-...