In the U.S. why shouldn't we just shoot for herd immunity now? Not sure how effective restrictions and mandates will be in slowing things down and the costs to mental health and quality of life are so high.
It's a bit like measuring outputs rather than outcomes.
[1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2103825?query=TOC
What I would be looking for is a study showing that prior infection has x% effectiveness as measured against a vaccine on a similar timeline.
GP's takeaway that "The vaccine results in more robust immunity" is completely unsupported by the provided source.
Can you cite a source for this? I see people saying it, but I haven't seen actual cases.
Has anyone, to your knowledge, explained why they might pursue such an insane misapplication of basic principles of public health?
Even my job has said that you have to be vaccinated to return (limited medical and religious exceptions). They also said it wouldn't make sense to keep the unvaccinated people working remotely, implying that they will fire people. They are not accepting antibody tests.
https://www.fox26houston.com/news/hospital-workers-prepare-t...
EDIT: Guess I worded that badly. What I mean is: choosing herd immunity is inevitable, so there is no choice. It will happen.
EDIT2: It didn't occur to me that there is a huge risk if more deadly mutations happen faster than herd immunity.
[1] https://www.brgeneral.org/news-blog/2021/july/can-i-get-covi...
Unless anyone can cite peer-reviewed sources that indicate otherwise, there doesn't appear to be any conclusive evidence on this point. In fact these publications provide evidence that naturally acquired immunity is just as effective as vaccination [1][2] ([2] hasn't been peer-reviewed yet).
> How long vaccine immunity lasts is an open question. So far, it's at least N months, where N is how long the vaccines have been in wide use. Beyond that is speculation.
I'm interested in recent peer-reviewed literature supporting this point, and would be grateful if anyone could share links.
[1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf
[2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
Those field hospitals are surge capacity; and work with hurricanes and earthquakes where a single part of the country is affected. You can bring in volunteers and reservists from other areas to create capacity.
When the emergency is everywhere, and on-going, all of your surge capacity is gone.
But we don't do that. Instead we act surprised every time there's a surge, the media feeds off it and everyone starts infighting. I'm not convinced hospital capacity is really the problem people say it is.
Take your pick from:
a) They were a bit of a PR gimmick? Better for gov't to be seen to do _something_ than standing around wringing your hands and hoping things will improve...?
b) They couldn't be staffed and equipped to provide appropriate and useful additional care?
c) General hospitals were perhaps not quite as close to being overwhelmed as was reported?
There were stories that German hospitals may have been slightly economical with the truth in terms of obtaining additional funding for ICU beds, which perhaps weren't needed or even ever created[0]
[0] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/corona-hilfen-schummelei-1-3...
Such techniques have proven to be very effective at preventing hospitalization and death for SARS-CoV-2 [1][2], yet you will rarely find anyone advocating for them.
The papers I've cited are some of the most highly cited in the literature, with world-wide support from experts at top institutions who are actually treating COVID-19 patients.
These alternatives to vaccination are likely more palatable for the anti-vax crowd, and can help prevent over-utilization of precious medical resources.
[1] Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltex...
[2] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
Doesn't this come back (yet again) to the financial incentives?
Go to FDA.gov and read up on "Emergency Use Authorization"[0]:
> FDA may authorize unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions caused by CBRN threat agents when certain criteria are met, including there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.
If it were to turn out that an existing (possibly cheap? maybe even a generic? ) over-the-counter medicine is a good treatment for C19 then that would undercut the business plans of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and co.
Asking "cui bono" has never been more appropriate.
[0] https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-...
The arrival of delta (and the other four or five major strains) signal that that theory flat-out will not work, the virus is mutating faster than we are reaching herd immunity. By the time we actually reach full herd immunity, we will have strains that the vaccine only provides significantly diminished protection against - we are arguably already getting there with Delta.
That's not quite true. I know people who are not anti-vax, nor anti-mask, but they have an aversion to a new untested vaccine.
Meanwhile we have Australia deploying the military to enforce acute lockdowns because they failed to secure enough vaccines early on.
The short answer is that schools probably should not be open at all. Even with the vaccine, you are talking about a disease that (even in mild cases) is known to cause subtle long-term damage to organs, it's really not a good idea to tempt fate in a growing kid, particularly with the potential for multiple recurring infections over time from different strains.
If you did want to re-open schools safely, you would have to require vaccinations, you would also have to restructure significant parts of the school "experience" - like having classes and bus transportation be significantly smaller and more spaced out, having class groups stay fixed and having teachers move between class groups rather than vice versa, etc. And all of that would be far more expensive - we would need more teachers, more classrooms, more busses, etc.
The reality is we're just throwing kids under the bus to die, because it would be expensive and inconvenient to do it right, and we can't not reopen schools because a lot of people depend on it as daycare and because a lot of people have decided we're "back to normal" regardless of what happens with future variants. Just like people have decided that we're done with masks and they're not putting them back on ever again, regardless of what the CDC says.
Open for business baby.
What the hell are you talking about? The CDC has said children are at less risk of death from Covid-19 than they are from influenza. Were we "throwing them under the bus to die" when we opened schools in every year before 2020 without masks and "stay apart from your biohazard friends" social distancing?
Also, "Study shows schools do not spread Covid": https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/75136706-f171-11eb-8f01-2...
> we can't not reopen schools because a lot of people depend on it as daycare and because a lot of people have decided we're "back to normal" regardless of what happens with future variants
No, it's because an education is a fundamental human right which is being denied to children, and the policy of closing schools has caused immense damage to their learning and mental health for practically zero benefit in reducing the harm caused by the virus.
Where people mask up, and when the area has low covid levels, students don't spread that much. Once the area takes off, the schools do indeed spread. (Which is kind of an obvious statement when you think about it, like of course kids don't magically have COVID when nobody else does, but also that they can spread it once an area starts getting a significant infection rate.)
I don't think going back to school in a state that has banned schools from masking up, during the surge of delta variant we're currently undergoing, is particularly safe at all, no.
> No, it's because an education is a fundamental human right which is being denied to children, and the policy of closing schools has caused immense damage to their learning and mental health for practically zero benefit in reducing the harm caused by the virus.
It's great that you have such strongly-held values! Then you won't mind spending the money to expand schools appropriately so a safe environment can be maintained, since the education of children is such a critical social outcome.
Like, I remember my high school and 25 kids was a small class, and hell no we weren't 6 feet apart. Explain to me how we get 2500 people 6 feet away from each other in a building that was designed to serve 2000 students that are 2 feet away from each other. That's the question that has to be answered to reopen safely.
Once schools are reopen en-masse, instead of just a limited basis (that allows spacing), we're going to have to address that capacity problem. Or more realistically, we just won't, and if the kids spread then oh well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdc-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccin...
Lack of education is a greater risk for children (and society as a whole) than any virus.
There were just 3 waves and there wasn't a 4th one after last opening, but this might be due to vaccinations (esp of teachers) and horrible first 3 waves that might have infected most children and their families.
Same with slowing the spread. People did not listen.
Because they were "free critical thinkers who can reach their own conclusions thank you very much". And they were wrong. And now they've put us here.
Well apparently quite a number of people must have taken precautions, because that's the explanation for why the flu has basically disappeared off the face of the earth.
Even small measures affect the numbers.
Because, like I said, the flu is far less contagious.
That's not the case in the SF Bay Area where vaccination rates are very high, keeping hospitalizations and ICU use low, yet mask mandates were reimposed here. We have plenty of ICU capacity.