Do you agree with Swedens Herd Immunity Approach?

And “yunguns” are dying too.

Neighbour to the left of me 90+ years old, to the right 75+ with disabled wife, behind both over 80 and all are for herd immunity so they think it's fine. I'm not saying we are right or wrong, but they like the idea of having our own bodies fight this off.

I can go along… after we develop and implement a vaccine…

Herd immunity, from what little I’m reading on it, has both the “recovered” and “vaccinated” archetypes.

Vaccinate the high-risk and let the others carry it, asymptomatically.

A very good point that I didn't think of. Vaccine as well as those that become immune on their own.

I’m didn’t start the thread, you did. You picked the topic. I was hoping to just explained why I disagree with your “herd”. And it is a very controversial topic.

If you’re willing to take the brutal reality of herd immunity. The basics of herd immunity is everyone gets it and those who can’t overcome the disease perish. Making the herd stronger by weeding out the weak. If everyone gets the disease in a short time span then life saving beds and equipment can only be used once. If spread with fewer people having the disease at any given time. Then more people will use the finite resources in turns. An interesting approach to take these days with over population. Of those 30 people you’ve talked to and only one gets the needed respirator and 5 don’t your herd will be smaller but stronger. If taken to the next step as nature has then only the best males and female should be breeding. Maybe instead of trying to save as many as possible, we should have breeding standards and permit boards.

You didn't just agree, you also said "so, I think it's just a little cruel to say every man/person for themself". Putting words into peoples mouths to try and make this thread go bust.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/michael-burry-slams-virus-lockdowns-in-controversial-tweetstorm

Worth a read.

klrman

What’s the difference between everyone for themselves and survival of the fittest? Nature is very cruel.

You are still focused on Sweden…

Some data (12 April)

Sweden (13 April)

10.5 million population
10948 infected
919 deaths

Well by all means, go on down to your local hospital and have some of the nice nurses let you into the Covid-19 ward, Roll around in the germs with no protection and then come back and have your covid-19 herd immunity party.

Then in 5-6 weeks or so, have your next of kin/coroner or local CDC get back to us of how that worked out for your herd.
See, no controversy at all.
Easy Peasy, have at it.

Uh, no.
Herd immunity is having the majority of people vaccinated and therefore the ones who aren’t/can’t be vaccinated are much less likely to get in contact with an infected person.
https://i.imgur.com/J7LANQ4.mp4

I vote for the third choice: (3) Time Will Tell

Remember, even when herd immunity is fairly well established, as with measles, you can always get one or several antivax people with three or four children in contact with those around them, and blam, another outbreak.

Herd Immunity can happen in two ways:

A. Many people contract the disease and in time build up an immune response to it (natural immunity).
B. Many people are vaccinated against the disease to achieve immunity.

What method did Sweden take? Option B doesn’t exist yet.

That seems like the exact opposite of this approach. Not taking the small hit of isolation/social distancing now will result in a worse outbreak down the road.

Let’s say 80+% of the population becomes infected (a very possible outcome due to the high R-rating of the virus, maybe even too conservative), with a 1% mortality rate (< an optimistic projection) that’s 80,000 deaths.

Herd immunity is not a solution to a pandemic - it is the entire population rolling the dice where the outcomes are 1) Don’t get sick and become immune, 2) Get extremely sick (possibly with lasting impact on your body), 3) Die.

Whatever the government says, anyone with risk factors should STAY HOME and ISOLATE. You are putting your life at risk for no reason by gathering and not taking precautions. This virus can be contained with proper measures taken early enough, and doing so later still limits the impact.

Having a massive outbreak all at once will overwhelm hospitals just like it has in the hotspots in Europe and the US and the death count will skyrocket. There are pictures of what measures are being taken to manage the cadavers and they should be a wake up call to anyone thinking we should “sweat this out”.

Did Sweden have a lottery to pic those who will be vaccinated, use age groups, male/female, rich/poor, or race. And what percent will be vaccinated and with what vaccine ???
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Not enough info to make a vote.
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This is speculation and or BS.
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Um, we don’t know yet if immunity works on Covid-19. Emerging evidence seems to suggest it may be like herpes or cold-sores. It may stay in you and comes back when it feels like it.

No, he’s saying their strategy is to let the majority of the population infected so that there is her immunity due to natural immunity after infection.

Possible… and frightening. But we won’t have any idea how likely that is until test kits that aren’t very inaccurate are widely available and there can be in-depth monitoring of recovered patients. At this point it’s equally likely that the virus is simply long-lived in those with weaker immune systems and that tests are inaccurate.

I think it’s worth pointing out that Swedish officials deny using the “herd immunity” approach, while it is critics of Sweden’s approach that label it as such. Sweden prepares for possible tighter coronavirus measures as deaths rise | Sweden | The Guardian

As for whether Sweden’s approach is actually herd immunity or not… that is harder to say. Herd immunity seems like a bad strategy (or really no strategy, unless you count social darwinism) at the start of a contagious disease. Imagine advocating that strategy with smallpox or measles. Herd immunity with vaccination is a different story. So because of all that, I did not vote in the poll.

Maybe the intent of the question is whether you agree with the lockdown policy. Even there, I would have a hard time answering: in the short term, I support lockdowns to tackle the exponential growth in spread and to avoid overwhelming health care systems. In the longer run, I have a hard time seeing how lockdowns can be maintained, due to the social, logistical, and economic consequences. Plus, it’s really not a solution to the virus. I think measures for keeping the spread rate low will be key, such as maintaining social distancing protocols and reminding people to wash hands, etc.

I think there’s room for thinking and rethinking policies, and I suspect they will be adapted over time. The danger in my view is in denying the problem due to not liking the consequences of a policy.

Solutions I can imagine so far are 1) eventual herd immunity through a vaccine, which will realistically take significant time to develop and deploy, 2) eradicating the virus without a cure by isolating cases until there is no active cases left and no more transmission (possible? I dunno), 3) ???

I think this coronavirus will force people to take both the health and economic risks of pandemics more seriously, and hopefully form a more suitable strategy for the future, as some Asian countries did after their previous experiences. After all, we can anticipate that there will be a next time… and I don’t think we want to go through this again.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” comes to mind.

I appreciate that the majority have tried to be reasonable and maintain their calm with this topic. Actually lots of interesting information to mull over. So I’m not chastising anybody, but I do think it would be wise to get out while the getting’s good, i.e. before a fight breaks out in this thread. I believe I can leave the poll open while closing comments on this thread. Here goes, be safe everyone!