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Is COVID strategy moving towards herd-immunity?!

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RayDunzl

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North_Sky

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It's not extremely contagious. Measles and norovirus are extremely contagious.

I thought Coronavirus was very contagious...I've read it somewhere ...

Agreed, but I believe that could be achieved with targeted measures less drastic than the blanket lockdowns currently being used. Sweden still exists, you know.

Sweden you think they have a good strategy?
Sure they are still part of our planet, the Swedish people. Only by comparing them to their neighbors we have a broader vision.

At the current rate, a few decades.

Wow, that's a long time to be living with this nasty virus ...
In twenty years we have all the time to see more protests, more deaths too.
...Lots of changes; economically, socially, geographically, culturally, biologically ...

With a little luck, another 6 months.

A "little luck" ... is that part of the scientific equation, or part of wishes and hopes and faiths? Do you believe in human good for the future of our planet?
 

phoenixdogfan

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Oh, and make sure after you contract it, to infect your wife, your children, your siblings and their families, your parents, and your grandparents. And do it without their knowledge or consent. Because that's what you are advocating for other people and their loved ones.

And after you complete that mission, go on public transportation, go onto crowded busses, trains and subway cars, announce you're Covid positive and you're going to cough, sneeze, and deliberately breath on each person in order to infect them and hasten the advent of herd immunity. Make sure to have someone film it. I'll spring for the popcorn for whoever wants to watch it.
 

Wes

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And,yes, it is highly contagious but not extremely so.
 

Vasr

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I think it a reasonable strategy might have been to shield those at high risk while letting the epidemic run its course in the general population. That would keep the healthcare services from being overwhelmed without crippling the entire economy for years to come. I am happy to accept the slight risk this would pose to me.

And where does the lasting damage reported for those afflicted survivors come into the picture?

Again the logic breaks down here. You would have to completely quarantine those at risk (anyone above 50?) from ANYBODY in this strategy without them participating in the economy, or earning a living, not suffering from the so-called lockdown strategy, etc. If you argue instead there are safe ways for them to do so, then the same safeguards can be used for everybody else without betting on a dubious strategy of fatalism. You cannot have it both ways.

But at least now you are admitting to "saving the economy" as the counterpoint not the red herring of people dying from a lockdown.

So, basically it boils down to you have a vested interest economically, have a good expectations that you would be able to manage your risks (although if you were a nurse or a doctor treating them, you would likely feel different regardless of age) and want to rationalize your benefits with dubious claims of a solution with very little evidence for the human cost and hyperbole at the cost of a currently working solution (except in the US).

You know what? The above is exactly the rationale used by people who advocate sending a country to war with another.
Especially those that are unlikely to be sent to the front-lines who declare that they are willing to do so if required but not likely to do so if that came to pass. :)

I don't agree with that rationale but at least it would be an honest argument as opposed to FUD to obfuscate the real reason for that advocacy.
 

North_Sky

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Some people younger than me die every year. So what?

I like your optimism realistic approach.

* Say your daughter had/has a car accident (pure assumption for the benefit of our discussion), and she requires immediate surgery within few hours or she'll be gone forever. The accident happened in Italy during their peak. She was vacationing there @ the time. ...I let you fill the rest...possible outcomes and think about it ...

* You are from the UK?
 

Darvis

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So you're will be perfectly fine if it hits and "martyrs" say 10% of your immediate family and friends ? Or even yourself for the "greater good" ??
You just made two inferences without any cause. First that what I was describing was my own position. I carefully selected my language to show that I was presenting a position among others, a possibility, an hypothesis. Then you assumed that one who could hold that position should be some sort of psychopath, fine with the death of his loved ones.

Do you even read what you're writing?
 

mansr

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And where does the lasting damage reported for those afflicted survivors come into the picture?
Severe illness often has long-term effects past the acute phase. I have seen no evidence that covid-19 is worse than other diseases in this regard. Most covid-19 cases have only mild symptoms no worse than a common cold.

But at least now you are admitting to "saving the economy" as the counterpoint not the red herring of people dying from a lockdown.
Same thing, to a large extent.

Say your daughter had/has a car accident (pure assumption for the benefit of our discussion), and she requires immediate surgery within few hours or she'll be gone forever. The accident happened in Italy during their peak. She was vacationing there @ the time. ...I let you fill the rest...possible outcomes and think about it ...
Italy failed to protect the old and vulnerable. So did Sweden. Had they taken measures to keep it out of care homes, the death stats there would have been very different.
 

Darvis

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If the hypothesis had some strong evidence...

You cannot use a hypothesis (absurd or not) to advance a policy that will definitely put a large population at risk - larger than with a limited but not very short term social distancing and masking with limited commerce - there is a considerable amount of avidence outside of the US that this helps bring R0 down considerably as opposed to any evidence that herd immunity is possible (except in two slums in the world where other variables such as age-stratification from lower life expectancy could be dominating assuming that the statistics were reliable).
But there is strong evidence for it, the simple facts that it is extremely contagious and that one or two super spreaders is all that it takes. I'm not saying that I'm swayed by the argument, but I'm presenting it because it has value. So, there is indeed a not so crazy scenario where the lock down is the worst outcome, with the most deaths and most economic destruction. I'm not saying it's the most probable, there is also a scenario where the lock down saves much more lives than it takes, but I'm amazed at how certain everyone is on a subject so complex with so many unknowns.
 

Vasr

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But there is strong evidence for it, the simple facts that it is extremely contagious and that one or two super spreaders is all that it takes. I'm not saying that I'm swayed by the argument, but I'm presenting it because it has value. So, there is indeed a not so crazy scenario where the lock down is the worst outcome, with the most deaths and most economic destruction. I'm not saying it's the most probable, there is also a scenario where the lock down saves much more lives than it takes, but I'm amazed at how certain everyone is on a subject so complex with so many unknowns.

Science has always been about great uncertainties and probabilities but has led to great progress more than any other form of investigation. The only people certain are people that don't have a good handle on science.

You are making a false conclusion based on a known premise - a super spreader can spread it if there are no mutual protections in place to advance the conclusion that this necessarily implies that it will spread to almost everybody one way or the other. That is the same logic as saying that because an automatic gun can kill hundreds within a few minutes, we are all likely to die of a gun wound anyway. That logical inference is false.

But those can be discussed rationally and argued.

However, your view of the type above is far more dangerous to science-based discourse.

It falls under the broad umbrella of "manufactured nihilism". This relies on tactics such as "both sides", "too complex", "everything is an opinion", "not everything is known", etc., to advance a viewpoint that has very little evidence going for it, with conclusions based on logical fallacies and it does it by expressly knocking down all better-informed and evidence-based argument with those nihilism tactics. Often combined with intellectual dishonesty such as promoting self-interests and known untruths (not referring to you here), what we have then isn't science but an adversarial system of lawyering whose goal is not to seek the truth but to prevail. This has been my greatest disappointment in public discourse recently as people I thought should no better have taken recourse to it - friends, family members, etc.

What science as a process has always done - consider both observable and experimental evidence to construct a model and create a probabilistic model based on it that evolves and form a course of action based on that evidence with a clear understanding of the probabilities. But creating a false dichotomy that science-based hypothesis has to be perfect and certain or anything and everything is equally valid has been the greatest perversion of science whether it is for climate change, vaccine policies or pandemic policies as in this case.
 

Vasr

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Severe illness often has long-term effects past the acute phase. I have seen no evidence that covid-19 is worse than other diseases in this regard. Most covid-19 cases have only mild symptoms no worse than a common cold.
Wrong. Insufficient knowledge.
Same thing, to a large extent.
Wrong. False equivalence/inference not supported by evidence.
Italy failed to protect the old and vulnerable. So did Sweden. Had they taken measures to keep it out of care homes, the death stats there would have been very different.
Wrong. Contra-factual argument that can establish idealized scenarios where it fails to tackle the "practicality/feasibility of such measures" and their implications.
 

phoenixdogfan

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Science has always been about great uncertainties and probabilities but has led to great progress more than any other form of investigation. The only people certain are people that don't have a good handle on science.

You are making a false conclusion based on a known premise - a super spreader can spread it if there are no mutual protections in place to advance the conclusion that this necessarily implies that it will spread to almost everybody one way or the other. That is the same logic as saying that because an automatic gun can kill hundreds within a few minutes, we are all likely to die of a gun wound anyway. That logical inference is false.

But those can be discussed rationally and argued.

However, your view of the type above is far more dangerous to science-based discourse.

It falls under the broad umbrella of "manufactured nihilism". This relies on tactics such as "both sides", "too complex", "everything is an opinion", "not everything is known", etc., to advance a viewpoint that has very little evidence going for it, with conclusions based on logical fallacies and it does it by expressly knocking down all better-informed and evidence-based argument with those nihilism tactics. Often combined with intellectual dishonesty such as promoting self-interests and known untruths (not referring to you here), what we have then isn't science but an adversarial system of lawyering whose goal is not to seek the truth but to prevail. This has been my greatest disappointment in public discourse recently as people I thought should no better have taken recourse to it - friends, family members, etc.

What science as a process has always done - consider both observable and experimental evidence to construct a model and create a probabilistic model based on it that evolves and form a course of action based on that evidence with a clear understanding of the probabilities. But creating a false dichotomy that science-based hypothesis has to be perfect and certain or anything and everything is equally valid has been the greatest perversion of science whether it is for climate change, vaccine policies or pandemic policies as in this case.

This type of "let both sides be heard" nihiism is being done by everyone from Tobacco companies, to carbon polluters, to proponents of "Intellligent design" to colloidal silver and hydrosulfanomide pushers, and now to herd immunity advocates. And you are 100 percnet right. It's just a sophistic, cheap, nihilistic game of making debaters' points by a bunch of feckless idiots who want nothing more than to advocate the unthinkable and have that be the "quick and dirty" way to establish themselves and revolutionary thinkers and "iconoclasts".

Too bad most people in this society lack the cognitive wherewithal to repel being "Tucker Carlsoned" in this fashion.
 
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