That's true if you have comprehensive testing and tracing in place. If a state waits until they're treating sick people to get serious, they're already up to two weeks behind the virus spread and with no knowledge of where exactly it is. — Andrew M

I think overestimate how easy it is to introduce "comprehensive testing and tracing". Especially if you are in a free society and not in Communist China.

Afaik, there is no European county that has duplicated the very fast and radical reactions of the governments of Taiwan, Korean, and Singapore. (And mainland China of course, but their reaction came after 2 months of denial, suppression of news, and outright lies).

People developing immunity through getting the disease is how you maximize the chance vulnerable people will also get it — boethius

Sorry man, I can't deal with you. You make no sense.

Do you think it is possible that a “second wave” may hit? that after all the huddling indoors, bailouts and lockdowns, that it may have been all for nothing? — NOS4A2

If it mutates, yes.

Take your BS to the Trump thread like I said. — Baden

Fine, but say that to the TDS crowd too, please.

I don't think you two are as far away from each other as you think. The phrase "herd immunity" has different connotations, some political, some medical.

I agree. That's pretty much what we're doing. — frank

The argument is the timing. That lot's of policy measures were available before.

It's like you have a bucket of water to put out a camp fire; you're too lazy and don't bother; you cause a forest fire and then go throw the bucket on the forest fire and say "see, I did".

Timing matters. In an a process that grows exponentially, timing matters a lot.

Sorry, which article? I was interested in Frank’s opinion.

I'd like to see everyone who wants to just rip the shit out of the other political side doing it on the Trump thread. That's what it's there for. And keep this thread for more nuanced ( :cheer: ) critiques.

Schools just closed because it just got here — frank

US: confirmed 8 tested cases of coronavirus first of February. confirmed 11 3 days later.
Source: Kaggle's dataset, aggregated from global records.

It's not "just got there", other countries have responded far, far better within similar timeframes.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

Not suggesting you don't listen to @frank either.

I don't think you two are as far away from each other as you think. The phrase "herd immunity" has different connotations, some political, some medical. — Baden

Benkei was saying that Trump is responsible for the present caseload in the US. That's wrong.

I'm not sure what fdrake was saying.

I agree with you that "herd immunity" became a political thing in the UK. Maybe they thought we could deal with this virus the way we did H1N1. Turns out we can't. I think we all know that now.

I agree with you that "herd immunity" became a political thing in the UK. Maybe they thought we could deal with this virus the way we did H1N1. Turns out we can't. I think we all know that now. — frank

:up:

It's not "just got there", other countries have responded far, far better within similar timeframes. — fdrake

I'm not interested in continuing this.

Sorry again, but that guy really has no authority to speak on such matters.

I don't blame you. Most people lose interest when arguments involve processing spreadsheets.

People developing immunity through getting the disease is how you maximize the chance vulnerable people will also get it
— boethius

Sorry man, I can't deal with you. You make no sense. — frank

This is just basic common sense.

If your strategy of getting herd immunity of a disease is everybody actually getting that disease, you're going to maximize chances of vulnerable people getting that disease.

You can protect vulnerable people either by containing the disease, which doesn't provoke herd immunity, or then creating some artificial way of creating immunity that is not actually getting the disease, and so can't expose vulnerable people to the actual disease because the now immune person didn't actually get the disease.

Herd immunity from getting the actual disease happens in 2 parts:

1. People getting the disease and their immune system learning to deal with it and becoming immune.
2. People getting the disease and dying from it and no longer being part of the herd.

There is no way to have 1 without 2. This is why an epidemiologists thought this idea was satire when he first heard about it.

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire — William Hanage, epidemiologist

If we accept the pandemic cannot be contained, then herd immunity is just the inevitable result of the pandemic playing out, but the build up herd immunity from people getting the disease does not protect the vulnerable from also getting it, as for the time you have the disease you are able to transmit it to vulnerable people, that how the disease spreads.

I bought some Hydroxychloroquine yesterday. It's touted as safe and one of the reasons it's been halting the spread of Coronovirus in South Korea and China. — Shawn

Man dies after self-medicating with chloroquine

Be careful.

I feel my TDS coming on, but I'll refrain. Another good illustration of why everything certain politicians say about coronavirus should be ignored.

So the UK is locked down. We're only allowed to leave our houses for food, for exercise once a day, and if we can't work from home and our work is essential.

I miss the days where I was just worried about Brexit.

Herd immunity from getting the disease happens in 2 parts:

1. People getting the disease and their immune system learning to deal with it and becoming immune.
2. People getting the disease and dying from it and no longer being part of the herd.

There is no way to have 1 without 2. This is why an epidemiologists thought this idea was satire when he first heard about it. — boethius

I think you can, and I think that is what the countries who follow this approach are trying achieve. If there are enough immune people in the herd, the virus will not find enough new targets to spread and fizzle out by itself. The problem is that to keep those who would die from the virus (the sick and elderly) separated, while the virus burns through the herd.

About time.

No country is trying to follow this. It would be insane.

I think you can, and I think that is what the countries who follow this approach are trying achieve. If there are enough immune people in the herd, the virus will not find enough new targets to spread and fizzle out by itself. The problem is that to keep those who would die from the virus (the sick and elderly) separated, while the virus burns through the herd. — Nobeernolife

No, you're just engaging in fantasy science.

If people are getting the disease they can transmit it to vulnerable people while they have the disease.

Fully isolating the vulnerable, which was sort of pseudo plan for propaganda purposes, is simply not practically possible.

The best that can be done is containing as long as possible, such as stopping flights as I was advocating when I joined this thread, and then slowing the spread so that the medical system is not overwhelmed. This results in many vulnerable people dying, but at least not more than necessary. With an overloaded medical system, lot's of healthy people die as well from lack of care, from the virus and other things.

Man dies after self-medicating with chloroquine
Be careful. — Michael

Have you considered that that is precisely the reason why the medical advisor (forgot his name now), was downplaying Trumps optimistic statement? Image the frenzy, where suddenly everybody thinks there is a magic cure, and some people who want the stuff have guns.
It seems the stuff works, but clearly it needs to be used very carefully, and also there are probably supply problems.

No, you're just engaging in fantasy science.
If people are getting the disease they can transmit it to vulnerable people while they have the disease. — boethius

I hate to be repeating myself, but what I described is PRECISELY the approach that every virologist who wants to achieve herd immunity prescribes. Clearly, you can not isolate the complete herd (someone has to get your groceries), and on the other side, clearly you do not want the vulnerable to get infected.

I hate to be repeating myself, but what I described is PRECISELY the approach that every virologist who wants to achieve herd immunity prescribes. — Nobeernolife

No, you are simply wrong and have not bothered to inform yourself of the basic science of what's going on.

The mechanism of protecting the vulnerable is by slowing the spread of the virus to within the medical system's ability to handle it, so that vulnerable people will get adequate care as well as healthy people.

You can try to isolate vulnerable people even more as part of that social distancing policy, but the process of reaching "herd immunity" is going to expose large amounts of vulnerable people to the disease. There's no practical way to isolate them for the entire duration of the pandemic.

Herd immunity is just the end result of everyone getting the disease and recovering or dying, it is not some sort of tactic that can be achieved and then, because there is herd immunity, vulnerable people are now protected.

Now, if you want to change your position to "yes, yes, the heard immunity thing is just social distancing; it's just bad PR to call it a plan to develop herd immunity by people getting the actual disease, rather than just the outcome of people getting the disease, which we obviously want to be a manageable process" then you are on your way to understand why Trump acted too late to have a better path than what is playing out in the US currently.

There is not some sort of bizarre theory and counter intuitive strategy where herd immunity can be "achieved quickly" and that's why actions were late and it's not a problem if even the late actions were completely bungled, like the tests.

Yes, by acting too late and incoherently, Trump put the US on a path to herd immunity sooner rather than later. No, doing so is not clever: the process of that happening quickly and out of control is what many virologists spend their entire lives studying and putting together plans and protocols to avoid happening - advice condensed into various briefings that went ignored.

Trump on 17 March :

“I've always known this is a real, this is a pandemic. I've felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

Trump on 18 March :

The coronavirus "snuck up on us,” adding that it is “a very unforeseen thing.”

Which one is it?

Oh wait, they're both bullshit.

But, to the position that my criticism of others would have been better received had I acknowledged my hypocrisy and then recited a long long winded self excoriation, I'd just ask that you pretend that happened. — Hanover

Why write an excoriation, why not just acknowledge the hypocrisy and reconsider your world view? Unless your goal is to be a hypocrite: in which case, mission accomplished.

Now that we're working under the assumption I followed your directions, will you now acknowledge that my post was fully correct in substance, or were your above comments just an irrelevant chastisement? My guess is that it's the latter. — Hanover

As I mention in my rebuttal, I see no evidence of the people you think will actually have hurt feelings from @Benkei's analogy. If there is no such person, I don't see what the substance could be. Even if there was such a person, I don't see why I'd accept it is was "hurtful language"; I'd still have to be convinced.

I think overestimate how easy it is to introduce "comprehensive testing and tracing". Especially if you are in a free society and not in Communist China. — Nobeernolife

It isn't easy, but South Korea (and others) have done it. The problem in the US was that the testing got off to a bad start (the US CDC's early tests were flawed). And the pandemic was not taken seriously by the administration until very recently.

Afaik, there is no European county that has duplicated the very fast and radical reactions of the governments of Taiwan, Korean, and Singapore. (And mainland China of course, but their reaction came after 2 months of denial, suppression of news, and outright lies). — Nobeernolife

All correct. But the point is that there are only two options available to avoid unnecessary death and social upheaval. That is to comprehensively test and contact trace. Or to completely lockdown until the virus is under control. So the time window has passed in the US for the first option, which leaves only the second option. Once the virus is under control, then the first option becomes available again. That's where China, South Korea, etc., are at now, and so the lockdown measures in place there can begin to be relaxed.

Edit: If you look at Chart 13b - NPI Measures Per Country, you'll see that South Korea had very few travel bans and closures. That's because they were ahead of the virus in their testing and contact tracing.

Sorry again, but that guy really has no authority to speak on such matters. — NOS4A2

You can find endorsements of Pueyo's two articles by infectious disease experts and public intellectuals here:

https://medium.com/tomas-pueyo/coronavirus-articles-endorsements-fdc68614f8e3

Note that it is the argument for the hammer and the dance that is essential here. Pueyo just happens to be the guy that has communicated it best.