Vasr
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2020
- Messages
- 1,409
- Likes
- 1,926
Please explain an alternative mechanism for how countries that 'let the epidemic rip' end up with a Gompertz curve, other than herd immunity.
Another example of false logic via false dichotomy. Herd immunity cannot be established by absence of theories/evidence for other mechanisms. It needs to be established by positive testing results that there is actual immunity let alone conflate amount of infections with amount of immunity. It is a simple concept and part of what doing science requires.
Necessarily positing herd immunity isn't any more valid otherwise than positing divine intervention.
Occam's razor suggests alternate posits such as a combination of growing awareness and self-quarantining and self-isolation of vulnerable segments (it takes a certain amount of immediate effects for people to take it more seriously "it is a depression only when you lose your job"), combined with hitting current limits of contact tracing and in some case amount of testing or reporting for the gathered numbers to plateau out and even subside. This could also be used to advance a thesis of very strict period of prophylactic measures. Mandated lockdowns are necessary only because people don't want to be responsible.
All of these are hypotheses and it is perfectly fine to have such hypotheses. But using such a hypotheses to advance a policy is irresponsible unless there is positive proof of developing immunity and an understanding of secondary effects for survivors. All because of some nebulous and un-quantified posit of the effects of a lockdown whose validity is not subjected to the same level of scrutiny or precision.