General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf "herd immunity" is the GOP plan, plan on 3 million dead by
this time next year. It's a bad plan.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)ooky
(8,929 posts)Medicare.
The new fascist party will love that!
TNLib
(1,819 posts)So I don't think that's going to work out to well for them.
ooky
(8,929 posts)In the meantime check out some of the recent polling on old voters opinions of Trump.
Also, the data is showing that the overwhelming risk of dying is on old people. If I was under 50 years of age I would not be too concerned about dying myself. If they can put the young people back to work they will take credit for it and court their votes.
Girard442
(6,084 posts)dawg
(10,624 posts)That would mean, conservatively, 196 million of us getting Covid-19. Even if the death rate turned out to be comparable to that of the flu (it's probably ten times worse), that would mean another 196,000 dead. Of course, the likely number would be much, much higher.
And after all that, the immunity conferred to the survivors might not be sufficient to stop the spread of the virus. All those lives might be sacrificed for nothing, and the virus might continue to circulate until a vaccine is successfully deployed. (Which might take years.)
MineralMan
(146,331 posts)You're off by one position.
One percent of 196 million is 1,960,000.
dawg
(10,624 posts)Showing how bad it would be even if the idiots were right.
330,000,000 (U.S. Population) x .6 (60% infection rate) x .03 (3% death rate W.H.O figures) =5,940,000 dead
God I hope I'm wrong.
dawg
(10,624 posts)to a regular flu season.
Botany
(70,581 posts)... rates aren't.
I ran the #s before and got 3,960,000 dead using a 40% infection rate and a 3% mortality rate.
dawg
(10,624 posts)Even spotting the deniers virtually all of data points still yields dreadful numbers. In my earlier post where I calculated a minimum cost of 196,000 lives, I noted that the real death rate was likely to be ten times the number I used. It could also end up being five or twenty times. Maybe even thirty.
And the 60% infection rate I used to achieve herd immunity is also likely to be significantly too low. More like 70% or even higher.
People who are calculating 2-3 million deaths are doing so using the best available numbers to plug into the equation.
I'm just trying to make the point that a herd immunity strategy is foolhardy and unacceptable, even using numbers so favorable that they strain credulity.
Botany
(70,581 posts)Trump just had to fire and or defund the people who were on the ground in China looking
for potential pandemic outbreaks. We had the people, the knowledge, the protocols, and
the labs in place that could have shut this down from the get go.
Until we have a vaccine "the beast" will run wild but Trump/Fox News/GOP's pushing
the early "opening things back up" is madness.
But we might have some very good news out of the University of Pittsburg
https://www.upmc.com/coronavirus/vaccine
openthepodbaydoors
(68 posts)The big problem is that we continue to add about 30,000 new cases per day, and this has been little changed in the past month.
True, there were days when only 17,000 and 22,000 cases were added, but they were offset by addition of 49,000 cases just a couple of days ago.
Whether we like it or not, around 1 million Americans have already been confirmed as infected. The true number may be 2 or 3 times higher.
That would amount to a teensie bit of herd immunity, but not for a few more weeks, and even then perhaps not enough to make much of a difference.
dawg
(10,624 posts)people.
The implications of that are horrific, and would play out over many, many months.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Really bad plan for the Russiapublicans to kill off their elderly and gullible base (not implying a correlation; those are two overlapping subsets).
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)We can quibble some about the number but 1% lethality seems to be close.
I did detect a change in tone when it demonstrated that the black community would be disproportionately impacted. That really added fuel to the fire of rolling the dice. Some might even conclude that it is a motivation.
spinbaby
(15,090 posts)So many of those disproportionately affected are in demographics considered to be expendable by the right: old people, poor people, minorities.
Shermann
(7,433 posts)So they haven't found a smoking gun as far as a hereditary link. But there is some degree of genetics being involved with most disease susceptibility. How else can a 90-year-old get through asymptomatically while a 20-year-old gets blood clots and a stroke? Or is that just an argument from ignorance?
This isn't being discussed as even a hypothesis yet on the MSM. But if a link is found, even a slight correlation, then in addition to herd immunity there is also natural selection occurring.
I'm not sure that is part of the GOP plan though, as they largely reject the idea of natural selection.
mopinko
(70,215 posts)all the other things that arent genetic, which is many. as well as genes for comorbidities.
plus all the unseen and un-dx'd health conditions out there. person could have had some other virus going on, and not known it.
i'm one of those walking, talking medical mysteries. many, many docs havent been able to accurately access my health status beyond- not perfect.
there will be natural selection occurring, of course, tho most of the deaths are people who are no longer fertile. i dont think they are smart enough to grok that on any level, so no i dont think it is intentional.
but the red states do seem to be doing their best to sell human lives for a dime.
the future will be interesting.
zonemaster
(232 posts)1) We have yet to verify that having the antibody due to having had the disease actually confers any immunity. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
2) Even if it does, we don't have the evidence showing how long such immunity will last. Many coronaviruses trigger an immune response in humans, but the protection period is very short - like a few weeks, compared to viruses like chickenpox or polio. We may never get rid of COVID-19 in the US population.
3) If you gamble on such a plan and either 1) or 2) becomes evident, you've pissed away valuable time, and by doing so magnified the pain, effort and duration of trying to get the genie back in the bottle. You're basically laying the groundwork for a giant eugenics experiment.
The Magistrate
(95,255 posts)"Defeat of a dangerous enemy is something to be for."
mopinko
(70,215 posts)he bet 8-10k. i bet 1m.
he took it as further proof that i am an insane commie pinko.
of course, he lost the second week. but being a fair person, i told him that we should have had a time limit. it was assumed to be a bet for the duration. i suggested 1 yr.
as a further gesture, i said that i didnt win until i split the difference.
i did the exact same calculation as you, based on the numbers i was seeing from italy and france.
he is a smart fellow, but has little math or science background, where i have a 2 yr science degree, and am a lifelong geek. i have been grateful for the ability to gloat, and gloat i do. on fb.
it's a funny thing about numbers. i think the traitors are making a serious mistake w their cherry picked data and made up numbers. they take a different route in the brain. they arent subject to the usual filters.
i read about a guy who broke out of scientology by studying science. i have been taking similar advantage of his complete ignorance here. he believes a lot of stupid things, including ear candles, ac vinegar, you name it.
i have been able to steer him toward reality when his cures fail a couple of times. there i dont gloat.
as the projections become concrete, a lot of veils will fall, imho.
advice to those of you w trumpkins in your life- rub their noses in those numbers. fucker carlson et al are making big hay out of failed projections, and minor issues w the numbers, like when was patient zero.
today we surpass twitlers 'good job' marker. rub their noses in that number at every opportunity.
Ace Rothstein
(3,183 posts)There are no good options right now.
MineralMan
(146,331 posts)what percentage of the population is infected. Until we know that, how can we plan effectively? Trump is blocking widespread testing.
crickets
(25,983 posts)Pobeka
(4,999 posts)Along with testing/containment and a few NPI measures. That lets us get back to mostly normal. Bank robbers won't like it, they'll have to find some other way to be identified because everyone else will be wearing a mask too for a while!
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)... and then maybe we can start to talk about getting back on Track
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)Yes, that could be years, but except for wearing face masks and no large gatherings (> 50 people?...), life will get back to normal while we wait.
That would save millions of lives. The economy would be just fine in that scenario.
Ace Rothstein
(3,183 posts)The country will fall to pieces before there's a vaccine in that case.
uponit7771
(90,364 posts)... from
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)Ace Rothstein
(3,183 posts)Hope herd immunity is a thing and even better if a vaccine becomes available. What we are doing now is not sustainable. I've posted before that I fully expect to get this virus at some point and that I'll probably lose some friends and family members to it, have already lost one older cousin.
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)Sports events, concerts, things like that are the impacted activities.
Takket
(21,625 posts)Until a vaccine comes along it is PPE with testing/contact tracing. PPE is being handled by companies and individuals but it is slow because drumpf has not used DPA to force more to manufacture them. Unfortunately the Feds have put no national strategy in place for testing and tracing so it is up to the states and were going to have 50 different plans. Some will work, some will fail, and the virus will go right on killing while we try to manage this at the state level instead of having anyone coordinate the effort.
What Im trying to say is, drumpf is useless.
tanyev
(42,613 posts)testing and PPE, are still being grossly mishandled by the administration, but hey all you slackers better get back to work anyway.