If "herd immunity" is the GOP plan, plan on 3 million dead by

[MineralMan]

this time next year. It's a bad plan.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. Yes it is, but it is being sold by the GOP and Fox so we should prepare.

[ooky]

2. True, but think how much money will be saved on Social Security and

Medicare.

The new fascist party will love that!

[TNLib]

5. But there voter base is perdomonitaly older Americans

So I don't think that's going to work out to well for them.

[ooky]

11. By this time next year the election will be long over.

In the meantime check out some of the recent polling on old voters opinions of Trump.

Also, the data is showing that the overwhelming risk of dying is on old people. If I was under 50 years of age I would not be too concerned about dying myself. If they can put the young people back to work they will take credit for it and court their votes.

[Girard442]

3. The plan is what you said, with an added gloss of other strategies to make it less obvious.

[dawg]

4. Herd immunity would require at least 60% of us being infected, probably 70% or more.

That would mean, conservatively, 196 million of us getting Covid-19. Even if the death rate turned out to be comparable to that of the flu (it's probably ten times worse), that would mean another 196,000 dead. Of course, the likely number would be much, much higher.

And after all that, the immunity conferred to the survivors might not be sufficient to stop the spread of the virus. All those lives might be sacrificed for nothing, and the virus might continue to circulate until a vaccine is successfully deployed. (Which might take years.)

[MineralMan]

9. Check your decimal point.

You're off by one position.

One percent of 196 million is 1,960,000.

[dawg]

16. Nope. I was assuming the same lethality as the regular flu.

Showing how bad it would be even if the idiots were right.

[Botany]

10. Math

330,000,000 (U.S. Population) x .6 (60% infection rate) x .03 (3% death rate W.H.O figures) =5,940,000 dead

God I hope I'm wrong.

[dawg]

17. My point was to show how bad a "best" case scenario would be, using a 0.1% death rate similar ...

to a regular flu season.

[Botany]

21. The only thing fixed in that equation is the U.S. population the infection rate and the mortality...

... rates aren't.

I ran the #s before and got 3,960,000 dead using a 40% infection rate and a 3% mortality rate.

[dawg]

24. Exactly. We just don't know. But we do know enough to be fairly certain it would be terrible.

Even spotting the deniers virtually all of data points still yields dreadful numbers. In my earlier post where I calculated a minimum cost of 196,000 lives, I noted that the real death rate was likely to be ten times the number I used. It could also end up being five or twenty times. Maybe even thirty.

And the 60% infection rate I used to achieve herd immunity is also likely to be significantly too low. More like 70% or even higher.

People who are calculating 2-3 million deaths are doing so using the best available numbers to plug into the equation.

I'm just trying to make the point that a herd immunity strategy is foolhardy and unacceptable, even using numbers so favorable that they strain credulity.

[Botany]

26. In America and world wide the #s of both cases and deaths will be staggering

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142481271

Trump just had to fire and or defund the people who were on the ground in China looking
for potential pandemic outbreaks. We had the people, the knowledge, the protocols, and
the labs in place that could have shut this down from the get go.


Until we have a vaccine "the beast" will run wild but Trump/Fox News/GOP's pushing
the early "opening things back up" is madness.
But we might have some very good news out of the University of Pittsburg

https://www.upmc.com/coronavirus/vaccine

[openthepodbaydoors]

19. Still averaging 30,000 new cases per day

The big problem is that we continue to add about 30,000 new cases per day, and this has been little changed in the past month.

True, there were days when only 17,000 and 22,000 cases were added, but they were offset by addition of 49,000 cases just a couple of days ago.

Whether we like it or not, around 1 million Americans have already been confirmed as infected. The true number may be 2 or 3 times higher.

That would amount to a teensie bit of herd immunity, but not for a few more weeks, and even then perhaps not enough to make much of a difference.

[dawg]

22. It would be optimistic to believe herd immunity could be established with fewer than 196,000,000 ...

people.

The implications of that are horrific, and would play out over many, many months.

[lagomorph777]

6. I'm guessing at least a million by Election Day.

Really bad plan for the Russiapublicans to kill off their elderly and gullible base (not implying a correlation; those are two overlapping subsets).

[exboyfil]

7. That seems to be the plan

We can quibble some about the number but 1% lethality seems to be close.


I did detect a change in tone when it demonstrated that the black community would be disproportionately impacted. That really added fuel to the fire of rolling the dice. Some might even conclude that it is a motivation.

[spinbaby]

14. I do question motivation

So many of those disproportionately affected are in demographics considered to be expendable by the right: old people, poor people, minorities.

[Shermann]

8. It's probably even a bit harsher than that

So they haven't found a smoking gun as far as a hereditary link. But there is some degree of genetics being involved with most disease susceptibility. How else can a 90-year-old get through asymptomatically while a 20-year-old gets blood clots and a stroke? Or is that just an argument from ignorance?

This isn't being discussed as even a hypothesis yet on the MSM. But if a link is found, even a slight correlation, then in addition to herd immunity there is also natural selection occurring.

I'm not sure that is part of the GOP plan though, as they largely reject the idea of natural selection.

[mopinko]

15. how it can be is-

all the other things that arent genetic, which is many. as well as genes for comorbidities.
plus all the unseen and un-dx'd health conditions out there. person could have had some other virus going on, and not known it.
i'm one of those walking, talking medical mysteries. many, many docs havent been able to accurately access my health status beyond- not perfect.

there will be natural selection occurring, of course, tho most of the deaths are people who are no longer fertile. i dont think they are smart enough to grok that on any level, so no i dont think it is intentional.
but the red states do seem to be doing their best to sell human lives for a dime.

the future will be interesting.

[zonemaster]

12. Three things (at the least) make that plan foolhardy

1) We have yet to verify that having the antibody due to having had the disease actually confers any immunity. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

2) Even if it does, we don't have the evidence showing how long such immunity will last. Many coronaviruses trigger an immune response in humans, but the protection period is very short - like a few weeks, compared to viruses like chickenpox or polio. We may never get rid of COVID-19 in the US population.

3) If you gamble on such a plan and either 1) or 2) becomes evident, you've pissed away valuable time, and by doing so magnified the pain, effort and duration of trying to get the genie back in the bottle. You're basically laying the groundwork for a giant eugenics experiment.

[The Magistrate]

13. Unfortunately True, Sir

"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."

[mopinko]

18. i have a wager w my trumpkin.

he bet 8-10k. i bet 1m.
he took it as further proof that i am an insane commie pinko.

of course, he lost the second week. but being a fair person, i told him that we should have had a time limit. it was assumed to be a bet for the duration. i suggested 1 yr.
as a further gesture, i said that i didnt win until i split the difference.

i did the exact same calculation as you, based on the numbers i was seeing from italy and france.

he is a smart fellow, but has little math or science background, where i have a 2 yr science degree, and am a lifelong geek. i have been grateful for the ability to gloat, and gloat i do. on fb.

it's a funny thing about numbers. i think the traitors are making a serious mistake w their cherry picked data and made up numbers. they take a different route in the brain. they arent subject to the usual filters.
i read about a guy who broke out of scientology by studying science. i have been taking similar advantage of his complete ignorance here. he believes a lot of stupid things, including ear candles, ac vinegar, you name it.
i have been able to steer him toward reality when his cures fail a couple of times. there i dont gloat.

as the projections become concrete, a lot of veils will fall, imho.

advice to those of you w trumpkins in your life- rub their noses in those numbers. fucker carlson et al are making big hay out of failed projections, and minor issues w the numbers, like when was patient zero.
today we surpass twitlers 'good job' marker. rub their noses in that number at every opportunity.

[Ace Rothstein]

20. Sheltering in place indefinitely isn't a plan either.

There are no good options right now.

[MineralMan]

23. The good option is to ramp up testing so we know

what percentage of the population is infected. Until we know that, how can we plan effectively? Trump is blocking widespread testing.

[crickets]

25. Agreed: therein lies the real problem with any plans being undertaken now. nt

[Pobeka]

30. We're also unsure how long antibodies last. A good vaccine is the ultimate goal.

Along with testing/containment and a few NPI measures. That lets us get back to mostly normal. Bank robbers won't like it, they'll have to find some other way to be identified because everyone else will be wearing a mask too for a while!

[uponit7771]

32. 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽THIS !!!👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽 We need a "Want A Test Get A Test" quick turn around like in China

... and then maybe we can start to talk about getting back on Track

[Pobeka]

29. We can keep just a few NPI measures in place, have contact tracing and wait for a vaccine.

Yes, that could be years, but except for wearing face masks and no large gatherings (> 50 people?...), life will get back to normal while we wait.

That would save millions of lives. The economy would be just fine in that scenario.

[Ace Rothstein]

31. There are 10's of millions who are out of work for years in your scenario.

The country will fall to pieces before there's a vaccine in that case.

[uponit7771]

33. +1, that's why the DNC needs to continue to blame the kGOP so people know where their pain is coming

... from

[USALiberal]

35. ok, whats your plan? nt

[Ace Rothstein]

36. We're going to have to slowly open back up.

Hope herd immunity is a thing and even better if a vaccine becomes available. What we are doing now is not sustainable. I've posted before that I fully expect to get this virus at some point and that I'll probably lose some friends and family members to it, have already lost one older cousin.

[Pobeka]

37. Amost everyone can work 6 feet from someone else, 6 feet wearing a mask is ok.

Sports events, concerts, things like that are the impacted activities.

[Takket]

27. I think so...

Until a vaccine comes along it is PPE with testing/contact tracing. PPE is being handled by companies and individuals but it is slow because drumpf has not used DPA to force more to manufacture them. Unfortunately the Feds have put no national strategy in place for testing and tracing so it is up to the states and we’re going to have 50 different plans. Some will work, some will fail, and the virus will go right on killing while we try to manage this at the state level instead of having anyone coordinate the effort.

What I’m trying to say is, drumpf is useless.

[tanyev]

28. Yes, the two things that really could get us back to work,

testing and PPE, are still being grossly mishandled by the administration, but hey all you slackers better get back to work anyway.

[uponit7771]

34. +1