The WSJ published an interesting article, “The Weekend Interview with Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya: Epidemiologists Stray From the Covid Herd” 10/24/20. As expected it sparked a lot of controversy, from both the medical world as well as the lay population. In the responses to letters regarding the article. The following is one such comment, that I found particularly informative.
MS Galinski
Despite the political debate on the "pros and cons of herd immunity," if you re-frame herd immunity as the equilibrium of SAR-CoV-2 in the population, it may help resolve some of the misunderstandings.
Herd immunity, for those trained in the art, does not mean the elimination/eradication of the disease, but the resistance of the population to epidemic spread (as is now occurring with COVI-19 pandemic). The "stable" (endemic) presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the population is the equilibrium point. The endemic presence is impacted by the properties of the virus (pathogenicity, R0), the population level of immunity, social interventions, and medical interventions should a vaccine emerge.
Assuming that SARS-CoV-2 adapts to humans and does not mutate to establish periodic epidemics, at a "natural" equilibrium there will be a constant morbidity and mortality of undefined magnitude at this time. This will occur and cannot be stopped as there is no deus ex machina written into this drama.
The original article is behind a paywall. It is available to subscribers of the print and/or electronic editions.
Last edit: 02 Nov 2020 07:41 by ramage. Reason: Misspelling
New predictions say we will not have a vaccine in Europe until 2022. So it looks like herd immunity will be the future whether it is deadly or not. Europe locked down, but once they opened back up, infections and deaths increased.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Does nobody remember that lockdowns were only put in place to “flatten the curve”? That was so that we wouldn’t overwhelm medical facilities. They were never intended to stop the virus because it isn’t stoppable. We are just stretching this out - making it last much longer than necessary.
