Huff Post: What Is Herd Immunity, And Can It Really Help Us Fight Coronavirus?

[Quixote1818]

This paragraph can't be ignored so Sweden's route is an absolute no go for the US:

“To achieve herd immunity in the U.S., that would be close to 200 million cases and even with a low fatality rate of 0.5% ― which is probably the best estimate at present ― that would be 1 million fatalities in the U.S.,” Rossman said. “This is obviously not an acceptable risk and would definitely overwhelm the health system unless it was spread out over many years.”


By
Beth Krietsch
04/28/2020 05:45am EDT

There’s a lot of talk about how achieving herd immunity for COVID-19 is the key to reopening the economy during the current pandemic.

Put simply, this is when enough of a population becomes immune to a disease ― either because they’ve been vaccinated or because they’ve had the disease and recovered and developed immunity. As a result, the disease can no longer spread efficiently, and even those who are not immune to the disease are still protected from becoming ill. We’ve seen this with illnesses like polio and chickenpox that are now much rarer than they used to be.

A vaccine would make herd immunity possible, but we won’t have a COVID-19 vaccine for quite some time. So some people have floated the idea of purposefully allowing the population to get infected with the coronavirus as a way to build up herd immunity.

More: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/herd-immunity-fight-coronavirus_l_5ea6f25fc5b6dd3f908844c1

[Goodheart]

1. "Herd immunity" is when so many people have died the survivors no longer care.

[Lithos]

2. Carries a big assumption

Assumption: You develop lasting immunity from being infected; or you can develop immunity from a vaccine. The virus is mutating, so there is no guarantee any antibodies you develop have a lasting effect. Given the rate of mutation they are seeing in the wild, there is a chance that we might need to add their best guess to the dominant infective COVID strain to the yearly flu shot.

The herd immunity is that enough people are resistant and can not carry the virus that they effectively break the chain of transmission. This is typically the defense of last resort for those with a compromised immune system.

To avoid being a Debbie Downer - so far, they think there is a protein spike that is part of COVID which may prove hard to mutate and which might be the weak point for any vaccine or treatment.

[Quixote1818]

4. This virus seems to be pretty stable. Mutations are so far not that concerning

Fauci: Recovered coronavirus patients will likely be immune if second wave hits in fall
Anthony Fauci said the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has not mutated much, so people who develop immunity will likely maintain it.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/491988-fauci-recovered-coronavirus-patients-will-likely


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8208379/Coronavirus-mutating-slowly-giving-scientists-time-develop-vaccine.html

[Hestia]

10. Highly recommend reading this article

APR. 26, 2020
We Still Don’t Know How the Coronavirus Is Killing Us
By David Wallace-Wells
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/we-still-dont-know-how-the-coronavirus-is-killing-us.html

Over the last few weeks, the country has managed to stabilize the spread of the coronavirus sufficiently enough to begin debating when and in what ways to “reopen,” and to normalize, against all moral logic, the horrifying and ongoing death toll — thousands of Americans dying each day, in multiples of 9/11 every week now with the virus seemingly “under control.” The death rate is no longer accelerating, but holding steady, which is apparently the point at which an onrushing terror can begin fading into background noise. Meanwhile, the disease itself appears to be shape-shifting before our eyes.

snipped

Over the past few months, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital has been compiling and revising, in real time, treatment guidelines for COVID-19 which have become a trusted clearinghouse of best-practices information for doctors throughout the country. According to those guidelines, as few as 44 percent of coronavirus patients presented with a fever (though, in their meta-analysis, the uncertainty is quite high, with a range of 44 to 94 percent). Cough is more common, according to Brigham and Women’s, with between 68 percent and 83 percent of patients presenting with some cough — though that means as many as three in ten sick enough to be hospitalized won’t be coughing. As for shortness of breath, the Brigham and Women’s estimate runs as low as 11 percent. The high end is only 40 percent, which would still mean that more patients hospitalized for COVID-19 do not have shortness of breath than do. At the low end of that range, shortness of breath would be roughly as common among COVID-19 patients as confusion (9 percent), headache (8 to 14 percent), and nausea and diarrhea (3 to 17 percent). That the ranges are so wide themselves tells you that the disease is presenting in very different ways in different hospitals and different populations of different patients — leading, for instance, some doctors and scientists to theorize the virus might be attacking the immune system like HIV does, with many others finding the disease is triggering something like the opposite response, an overwhelming overreaction of the immune system called a “cytokine storm.”

One month ago, as the country went into lockdown to prepare for the first wave of coronavirus cases, many doctors felt confident that they knew what they were dealing with. Based on early reports, covid-19 appeared to be a standard variety respiratory virus, albeit a very contagious and lethal one with no vaccine and no treatment. But they’ve since become increasingly convinced that covid-19 attacks not only the lungs, but also the kidneys, heart, intestines, liver and brain.

[Lithos]

11. There is a lot of concern about maintaining immunity

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/25/us/who-immunity-antibodies-covid-19/index.html

It depends on the virus as to the length of immunity which is maintained. Yes, some viruses such as Small Pox grant lifelong immunity; others like H1N1 only give up to 10 years. Some corona viruses only give immunity lasting a few months.

See also:

https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-immunity/

At this point, there is a lot of hope immunity might last, but there is also no scientific evidence it will happen.

[Turbineguy]

9. There are reports of other damage being done to the body.

We do not know if asymptomatic people will have no long-term effects.

[JCMach1]

3. Entirely depends on what the real R0 is...

[Poiuyt]

5. Haven't there been cases where some has recovered and then become reinfected?

Or was that just an unconfirmed report?

[Quixote1818]

7. They don't seem too worried about those from most of the articles I have read

There is a bit of concern but I think the consensus is that most people will probably have immunity for a number of months. I will see if I can find one of those links.

[Quixote1818]

8. Well, it looks like they think immunity will last for most people at least 7 or 8 months

If that is all it lasts then it's even worse for Sweden as everyone getting it now might be back in trouble this fall.

https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-recovering-from-coronavirus-immunity-through-september-antibodies-2020-4

[Hoyt]

6. Don't think achieving herd immunity is a strategy for fighting CV19, but it may be

an outcome that leaves a lot of casualties. One mitigating factor, is if we can protect the most vulnerable to serious complications from infection.

[Raine]

12. Every time I hear the term "herd immunity " I think of "herd mentality"

which is a big turn off. 😣