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May 10, 2020

Herd Immunity Coming Faster Than Thought

Timothy Birdnow

Herd immunity is coming much earlier with COVID 19 than everyone believes.

Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought

From Judith Curry:

The â€˜herd immunity thresholdâ€™ (HIT) can be estimated from the basic reproduction rate of the epidemic, R₀â€“ a measure of how many people, on average, each infected individual infects. Standard simple compartmental models of epidemic growth imply that the HIT equals {1 â€“ 1/R₀}. Once the HIT is passed, the rate of new infections starts to decline, which should ensure that health systems will not thereafter be overwhelmed and makes it more practicable to take steps to eliminate the disease.

However, the Ferguson20 report estimated that relying on herd immunity would result in 81% of the UK and US populations becoming infected during the epidemic, mainly over a two-month period, based on an R₀ estimate of 2.4. These figures imply that the HIT is between 50% and 60%.[2]Their report implied that health systems would be overwhelmed, resulting in far more deaths. It claimed that only draconian government interventions could prevent this occurring. Such interventions were rapidly implemented in the UK, in most states of the US, and in various other countries, via highly disruptive and restrictive enforced â€˜lockdownsâ€™.

A notable exception was Sweden, which has continued to pursue a herd immunity-based strategy, relying on relatively modest social distancing policies. The Imperial College team estimated that, after those policies were introduced in mid-March, R₀ in Sweden was 2.5, with only a 2.5% probability that it was under 1.5.[3]₀ is unlikely to have been significantly under 2.0.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in the country in the second half of March suggests that R2.

Read the entire piece!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 05:21 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I could be wrong, but our response to this whole shebang ignored the Herd Immunity idea, probably because of the official fear of anybody catching the virus at all. Some would lay that on the President't avowed "germophobia," but I think that's unfair. If the President were to have talked about Herd Immunity and said "The way to fix this thing is to let some people catch the virus and we'll ride it out," he'd have been murdered in the press -- and maybe even literally. Sometimes you can't do the right thing because "they" just won't let you.

The media sold this disease to the country as a horrible killer, on the same level as the Black Death. It isn't, but there are millions of people out there who believe it is. I know some of them personally, and they don't get their information from Fox News.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at May 11, 2020 11:03 AM (+7EQz)

2 Agreed! Sweden of course went the herd immunity route and have had no more deaths than anyone else. South Korea was pretty light on quarantines and the like too.

It was rejected by the powers that be precisely because it would take them out of the equation, I believe. Fauci, Birx, and the rest of them wouldn't have their moment in the sun.

I know a lot of people who also think this is doomsday. It's astonishing how few people can do basic arithmetic.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 12, 2020 06:31 AM (jqGpL)

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Posted by: India Wale at May 13, 2020 03:26 AM (xIg8i)

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