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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Imagine treating a virus the same way as a terrorist attack. Stop pretending that governments can regulate viruses out of existence, or that armies and lockdowns are going to prevent microscopic, nanometer-sized viruses from traveling in the air. This is beyond asinine.

By the way, SK just kicked the can down the road, they are continuing to get spikes because they have no herd immunity: "Coronavirus: South Korea closes schools again after biggest spike in weeks" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52845015

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The US absolutely has no herd immunity.

Herd immunity kicks in at somewhere around 60-75% recovered, IIRC.

Unless the asymptomatic infection rate is at least an order of magnitude higher than anything remotely suggested, there's no possible way the US is approaching herd immunity. We're not even to 5% infected, let alone 50%.

This virus is more infectious and less deadly than originally estimated, putting herd immunity more like 80-85%.

Both of these comments are spreading misinformation about "herd immunity."

Any amount of immunity or resistance within the population will reduce the effective reproduction rate of the virus. This effect becomes more significant as the immunity rate increases.

Herd immunity is a colloquial term which refers to the point where there's so much immunity that the effective reproduction rate <1 and new infection clusters die out. The percentage of the population which needs to be immune to get R<0 depends on many factors, consider that many countries have managed to achieve this with near zero population immunity.

For example - if we imagine a hypothetical society which could indefinitely maintain measures like social distancing and mask wearing, the effective reproduction number will be low to begin with; the population immunity required to get to R<0 will therefore be lower.

Please start here before spreading additional misinformation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

This is just blatantly false misinformation. To anyone reading this, just a simple google of antibody tests will show you how false this is.

Flagged.

Random antibody tests are how we found out it spread further than originally estimated, and is less deadly than originally estimated. The denominator increased, the numerator stayed the same, and R0 was revised upwards.

SKs "biggest spike in weeks" is a small fraction of our daily new cases, even per capita.

Japan and China both managed to regulate the virus out of existence with more success than we have had at stopping terrorist attacks, doesn't seem like all that bad of a comparison to me.

> Imagine treating a virus the same way as a terrorist attack.

i didn't. i said imagine the situation. i'm saying that people would pay attention and treat it seriously.

> Stop pretending that governments can regulate viruses out of existence

isn't that exactly what south korea did?

the point is that there is no excusing the u.s. response to the virus.

> By the way, SK just kicked the can down the road, they are continuing to get spikes because they have no herd immunity

point me to scientific evidence of herd immunity. or any evidence they've kicked the can down the road. look at their graphs and compare them to the u.s. how in the world is their response kicking the can down the road but the u.s.' isn't? that quite literally makes no sense.

I pointed to an article from today, where SK tried to re-open their schools and immediately shut them down again thanks to another outbreak. They have nothing under control. Their population is still vulnerable and has no antibodies. The U.S. did not have a monolithic response. Many states never shut down, and never experienced overrun hospitals. Many states had light restrictions and never experienced overrun hospitals. Some states sent sick people to nursing homes and then had overrun hospitals.

> The U.S. did not have a monolithic response. Many states never shut down, and never experienced overrun hospitals.

You act as if the pandemic is over; the places that never shutdown or had light restrictions largely were hit later and, though they are behind, also haven't flattened the curve (and, many of the places that reopened early and rapidly, rather than gradually, are also seeing rebounds already.) They may not have yet seen overwhelmed hospitals, but a number of places in both of those groups that didn't before are nearing that point now.

that article says nothing about herd immunity.

> They have nothing under control

i think you have a vastly different definition of "under control" than i do.

> Their population is still vulnerable and has no antibodies.

again, do you have scientific evidence that backs such a claim up? i'm not claiming it doesn't exist, but it'd be nice if people making implications based upon such claims provide evidence for them.

> The U.S. did not have a monolithic response. Many states never shut down, and never experienced overrun hospitals. Many states had light restrictions and never experienced overrun hospitals. Some states sent sick people to nursing homes and then had overrun hospitals

what is your point, exactly?

Not the OP, but "not enough antibodies" is a crystal clear case: once antibodies get above HIT percentage, the epidemic dies out very quickly.

In general, a contagious virus, like COVID-19, can be stopped in only one of three ways:

(1) by acquiring herd immunity, which for most viruses requires exposure of 30-95% of the population (check HIT values for various diseases in wikipedia; initial COVID estimates are somewhere in 29-80%). Neither SK nor China is there yet. Even Sweden or Belarus are not there yet. Even Africa is unlikely to be there yet.

(2) by completely stamping it out (with aggressive decontamination, quarantines, etc.). Again, neither SK nor China is there (this is obvious, they do not even claim it; see school re-closing in SK, Jilin flare up in China, etc.)

(3) by vaccination. Again, no vaccinations in SK, China or anywhere for this matter.

So coronavirus is not "under control" anywhere. We might just accept that and focus on some other things that would be just as nice to get under control: heart disease, cancer, opioid addiction, etc. Just my 2c.

To be fair, you listed the requirements to "stop" an infectious disease, but then claimed them not being met meant it wasn't "under control". Those are two different things. The disease can be "under control" with the caveat that it only remains so as long as we continue to take certain precautions. Once it's "stopped", those precautions aren't really necessary.

Agreed. I assumed a particular interpretation of "under control" which could have been different from what the poster meant.

New Zealand appears to have achieved (2).

Best of luck to it (no irony!). That said, it might not hold. Stamping out the virus (2) requires keeping a perimeter around all existing carriers. New Zealand, being naturally removed from other countries, has some advantages in this regard. But even there, as soon as travel restarts reintroduction is not unlikely. We will see...

For example, many countries kept mandatory smallpox vaccinations long after the disease was eradicated within their borders because otherwise a single traveler can wreak havoc. Check for example smallpox reintroduction to Yugoslavia in 1972 by a single pilgrim. A quick martial law and quarantines helped contain it, but even then it caused, according to Wikipedia, 175 infections and 35 deaths.

If COVID-19 is as virulent as it is claimed to be I would not bet on NZ staying COVID-free after travel restarts. My 2c.

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