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Comment by not_a_moth | Hacker News Reader

Want to play devil's advocate

Closing all schools, closing gyms, closing restaurants

It's obvious we can't contain the virus

A ton of otherwise healthy adults and children, not at risk from virus, are going to damage their health both mental and physical to "flatten the curve" for the sake of the elderly

How about a different protocol: Society resumes per normal and if you're elderly or high risk, stay indoors and avoid contact until there's herd immunity, which given transmissibility could happen quickly

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Problem is until we reach "herd immunity" it will overwhelm the healthcare system and many people die unneccessarily due to degrading quality of treatment.

If won't overwhelm if the elderly or high risk are isolated and protocols are strict with that segment

There is still risk for people outside the high-risk segment.

Let's say that it's only 0.2% risk of death without a ventilator for the general population (based on https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-11/covid-19...). Let's say in the USA that we're talking 150M infected people who aren't high risk (65% or ~200M of the population is between 15-65). That's 300,000 people who will need ventilators (potentially for multiple weeks -- https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/prevention-and-sc...).

"The latest study available estimates there are about 62,000 ventilators in hospitals nationwide. That figure is seven years old — so the actual number could be higher." -- https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/8156756...

So yeah, you don't want all of those infections happening the same month or else hundreds of thousands of people will die.

That's not how herd immunity works... there is zero immunity. Caregivers cannot risk infection because their risk to their cared is too great and getting everyone infected isn't a strategy for anything other than mass death.

I don't follow, herd immunity greatly reduces the virus because when a critical mass gains immunity it can't easily reproduce

At that point it will be much safer for the vulnerable

There isn't mass death because the elderly will be isolated, a lot of elderly at risk here don't need caregivers and for the ones that do basic protocols can be adopted

Except we do not know that immunity from Covid is long-lasting. Based on similarity with other corona viruses one cannot expect that. It could be just few months.

The best hope that virus mutates to a milder form. But that requires the longest chain of transmission so the evolutionally pressure has chance to work. Increasing social distance is precisely what pushes the virus in that direction.

Sigh!

Herd immunity applies to the fact that a certain percentage (usually > 90%) is vaccinated against a specific virus.

You can't herd immunize a population by letting them get sick. What the Brits are attempting, in my opinion, is sheer madness and totally irresponsible. Even when they try to backtrack from the term "herd immunity" now.

Or, how do you think herd immunity ever worked on smallpox, or polio?

Hint: It started to work, when people got vaccinated against smallpox and polio. Before that they got sick in a very misearble way and died. It's not that they ever developed "herd immunity" on a natural way.

I also think that your suggestion to just bunker away old people in your original comment is outright offensive.

Offensive? Gimme a break. Necessary? Absolutely. It's a whole lot easier to reduce risks of catching a pandemic to zero than listen to obnoxious bullshit FUD suggesting not wearing masks and continue being blissfully reckless as the authorities have no plans and continue to display their complete unpreparedness.

I'm buying several months of dry goods tomorrow that won't be touched for several weeks, quarantining myself outside of my mom's home for two weeks, and will stick it out 3-6 months or however long it takes.

That's extremely kind of you (I mean that genuinely).

But how many elderly people do you think have such support?

You're talking out of your ass in hyperbolic absolutes that you know nothing about. Many elderly, like my mother, depend on caregivers. Caregivers get infected because it's so contagious, don't know they have it, and pass it along to their cared. That's the end of that so-called "isolation." One small foul-up and an elderly person is infected. That's all it takes.

You've been repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. I get that you have reasons to feel strongly about this situation. But even if others are wrong, you (like everyone) still have to follow the rules here. The comment would have been fine without the first sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is the UK’s theory.

Skin in the game. Those tickets to London have never been cheaper.

You're only assuming that immunity is possible.

As the experts don't know this yet, it would be irresponsible of the general public to make this assumption.

(especially when the rate of mutation is taken into consideration)

People are recovering because their immune system learns and remembers how to fight it. I'd at least assume our immune system would behave as its programmed to with this virus, before jumping to opposite conclusion

Also, if immunity isn't possible we'd see mass reports of people who recovered months ago getting it again, since this has been around mid November

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