Originally Posted by
Legion
We are now being told that it is not a matter of if but when many of us will get coronavirus, whether we develop symptoms or not.
Our only hope is to “flatten the curve,” relieve stress on the medical system, and wait for a vaccine.
So, we isolate ourselves and stay at home.
As a result, the economy is being devastated. Many people are out of work and unhappy.
But what if I were to tell you that our current isolation strategies may actually result in more deaths from coronavirus itself? I’ll explain.
The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.”
Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected.
That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent.
This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).
The media and policymakers seem to have accepted that we will depend on herd immunity to defeat COVID-19.
If we had a vaccine, everything would be different. But since a vaccine is not available, we must wait for enough people to be exposed and develop immunity.
In the meantime, we are being told to quarantine as much as possible so the medical system can deal with the many people who become infected.
Simple, right? Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than this.
What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die, even if we were to maintain the quarantine indefinitely.
Why is this the case?
The reason is that only young and healthy people contribute to herd immunity. Elderly and medically ill people generally do not contribute to herd immunity because their immune systems are not strong enough to develop an immune response.
This is not new or breaking science.
To illustrate what happens when you don’t have herd immunity, look no further than the outbreaks we’ve had in areas where that immunity has dipped below the necessary levels.
In 2019, there was a massive outbreak of the measles in Blue York Shitty for that reason.
In 2014, a measles outbreak in Disneyland sent the number of cases to a 20-year high.
Without herd immunity, where enough people have had the disease to avoid driving major outbreaks, future spikes will likely be much bigger.
How many more elderly or medically ill people will die due to a full quarantine? It is hard to say, but a conservative estimate would be 5-10 times the number of young and healthy people who may die from a partial quarantine, based on fatality rates published by the CDC.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/03/why-severe-social-distancing-might-actually-result-in-more-coronavirus-deaths/
Bookmarks