Exercising more than once a day is reasonable during lockdown, says new CPS guidance for England

So, hopefully herd immunity won't take as long to reach as feared.

In the absence of a vaccine, the only way to gain antibodies and immunity is to catch the virus.

The reason herd immunity was abandoned as a strategy is that if a large proportion of us get the virus, tens or hundreds of thousands of us will die of it.

That makes your statement preposterous - dangerously daft.

Even Cummings might have moved on...

ktache wrote:

Even Cummings might have moved on...

Wasn't he last seen sprinting off down Downing Street when Johnson announced he'd tested positive? I wonder if that counted as his one form of exercise that day...?

Herd immunity hasn't been abandoned.

You might not realise it but it's still the strategy just about everywhere.

What do you think flattening the curve actually means?

Flattening the curve means trying to prevent the health system being overwhelmed while we wait for a vaccine.

You got the first bit right.

It means slowing the spread of infection, not stopping it.

There's no guarantee a vaccine will even be possible and if it is it will likely be 18 months until it's ready in sufficient quantity for mass immunisation.

So if the virus spreads slowly for 18 months we'll be pretty much at herd immunity before a vaccine is even ready.

As the number of people who are immune grows then the potential peak of infection will decrease meaning we will need fewer and fewer measures to keep the peak below NHS surge capacity.

As things stand herd immunity is the only potential way out.

If the virus becomes seasonal even that won't be an option.

No expert thinks 'herd immunity' should be obtained by letting the virus run through the population, you achieve it via a vaccine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/number-coronavirus...

You realise that article actually quotes experts questioning the need for lockdown right?

I'm sure you also realise that other countries, notably Sweden, are managing this without a lockdown.

So there are plenty of experts who are proposing herd immunity via infection as the way out.

If you actually look at the policies of virtually all countries worldwide they are designed to achieve herd immunity via infection.

Sweden only has a population of about 10M and a density of 23 compared with 424 for England and 272 for the UK. They also have one of the highest single occupant % of dwelling in europe, so they naturally have 'distancing'.

Their PM recently said he didn't think they had done enough in advance.

I'm sure you also realise Sweden isn't doing especially well, despite having much lower population-density than the UK.

That article quotes one outlier 'expert' making a throwaway remark that isn't backed-up with any analysis. And then explains why it doesn't work as a solution. What do you think is wrong with the explanation given, and can you explain how the first 'expert' arrived at their conclusion?

Where do you get that "so..." from in your third sentence? It implies the rest of the sentence follows from what came before, and yet it doesn't, it is just an assertion, without any argument preceding it.

Your fourth sentence also seems to have no supporting evidence.

Edit - another epidemiologist making similar points.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/california-coronavirus-her...

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

No expert thinks 'herd immunity' should be obtained by letting the virus run through the population

Now that's been shown to be nonsense you've changed tack.

There are plenty of experts proposing herd immunity, if you bothered reading outside your echo chamber you'd realise that.

The entire point of the lockdown is to prevent healthcare capacity being exceeded.

Sweden has so far managed to minimise economic damage without surpassing the capacity of their healthcare system to cope.

As long as healthcare capacity is not exceeded then the mortality of the infection should be the same regardless of whether the infections take place over a 3, 6, 12 or 18 month period.

Sweden has a higher number of deaths now because it has more infections, when other countries release their lockdowns (which they will have to do) their infection rates will increase and so will the number of deaths.

If you lockdown too early you cause economic damage for no long term benefit in terms of coronavirus mortality.

Therefore if you aren't close to exceeding the capacity of your healthcare system you shouldn't lockdown.

In the UK we're a long way from exceeding the (newly expanded) capacity of our healthcare system. In Wales we're currently only using about half the beds available.

If the virus is far more widespread than initially though and largely asymptomatic (as suggested by the research in the article) then herd immunity will be achieved far faster than initially thought.
Infection rates will drop as more of the population becomes immune. The peak will not be as high as initially modelled and therefore it may not have been necessary to lockdown at all.

Your first line is a complete non-sequitor that makes no sense. Why did you bother with it?

Sweden has a very high level of deaths because the disease is being allowed to spread, and it's killing vulnerable people in care homes particularly, as a result. Sweden is not doing particularly well, compared to other similar Scandinavian countries. They are of course free to try that approach, but I don't think it looks promising as an example to follow.

Again, that the virus is very contagious and so has spread more than first thought, still does not put us near 'herd immunity'. We won't get there till a great many more people have died. You seem very blase about that, though.

I have seen some of those other 'experts', and they strike me as ideologically biased.

For example this one

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-d...

Note he takes the DP passengers CFR as being 1%. Despite the fact that when he wrote that, almost none of them had recovered and many were still critical. That was known at that time. Since then more of them have died so the CFR for that groups is now almost 2% (and a few are still critically ill). I just wonder why an 'expert' made such a basic failure of reasoning as to ignore all those still critically ill.

Yesterday there was widespread coverage of an interview with Sweden's chief epidemiologist who stated that Stockholm would likely reach herd immunity 'in weeks'.

The Financial Times also analysed the hospitalisation rate in Stockholm which clearly showed that the peak of infections had passed.

(Neither of those stories were covered at all in The Guardian. Clear evidence, if more were needed, that they are politicising their coverage.)

Obsessing over the current death rate shows a complete lack of understanding of the topic.

This disease will not go away until herd immunity is achieved. Countries with low death rates now are simply at an earlier stage in the spread.

If Sweden does imminently achieve herd immunity then they will be spared any future spikes in disease activity and their death rate and infection rate will plummet whilst those countries that locked down will see theirs continue to rise.

As for case mortality that is an unknown but given the data from the Netherlands showing an antibody rate 25 times higher than the official infection rate it is likely to be a fraction of 1% when all cases are accounted for.

A cruise ship full of elderly people is not an adequate proxy for an entire society but it is useful for demonstrating that certain groups are at higher risk which is the point made in the NYT piece.

It doesn't matter if the mortality is 1% or 2%, the point was that it is higher in 'at risk' groups.

Virtually all modelling done for countries that have locked down shows further subsequent spikes in infection, if those spikes occur during the winter as they are now quite likely to do then the effect will be devastating.

Hospitals and Intensive Care facilities are usually at their busiest during the winter, adding a huge spike in Coronavirus cases and you will have a massive amount of excess mortality.

That is the reason that people are proposing herd immunity, as they believe it will lead to fewer deaths in the long run.

If you accept that there will be no vaccine for 18 months and if you can keep the number of infections below your hospital and ITU capacity then there is no additional risk in concentrating 18 months worth of infections into the first few months.

So, no additional risk and potentially huge benefits in terms of lives saved.

You need to think long term with this infection.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

I'm sure you also realise Sweden isn't doing especially well, despite having much lower population-density than the UK.

That article quotes one outlier 'expert' making a throwaway remark that isn't backed-up with any analysis. And then explains why it doesn't work as a solution. What do you think is wrong with the explanation given, and can you explain how the first 'expert' arrived at their conclusion?

Where do you get that "so..." from in your third sentence? It implies the rest of the sentence follows from what came before, and yet it doesn't, it is just an assertion, without any argument preceding it.

Your fourth sentence also seems to have no supporting evidence.

Edit - another epidemiologist making similar points.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/california-coronavirus-her...

Population density of Stockholm is similar to greater London

I don't see that anyone knows _for sure_ how to resolve this. The countries that aggressively used test-and-trace, like South Korea, _seem_ to be doing best so far, but nobody is out of the woods yet, and it could yet go wrong for them.

It's clearly a learning process and, from what I can see, everyone is stumbling around in the dark (it doesn't seem as if there's any certainty about where the virus originated, even).

But I am bemused by the existence of a kind of cult-of-contrarian-cleverness, that you appear to be subscribing to, along with the likes of David Halpern and his 'nudge unit', who seem to think they are much cleverer than everyone else and have _the_ answer, against the advice of most epidemiologists, in the form of 'herd immunity through infection'.

Where are you lot getting this from? It seems to me there's a particular (overwhelmingly privately-educated white guy) demographic - essentially the sort who listen uncritically to the Freakanomics podcast - who seize on things like this as a point of faith, despite the rather weak evidence for it. The Hoover Instituation has been pushing related ideas as well, so far via a military historian and a law professor - both misrepresenting themselves as 'experts' in epidemiology.

Why are some so besotted with the idea of 'herd immunity through infection'? The majority of actual epidemiologists I've seen talk about it seem to consider that a high-risk policy - especially when accompanied by a refusal try and flatten the curve via lock-downs, as the UK government initially proposed, before it was panicked into following the majority.

Sweden is so far doing worse than Denmark, Norway or Finland. Again, while no country seems to have a definitive answer, Sweden don't seem a great example to follow.

You seem to be struggling with the basic principles at play here.

We are faced with a situation in which the virus will continue to spread until we reach herd immunity either through infection or vaccination.

There is no guarantee a vaccine will ever be found.

If a vaccine is found most experts believe that it will take a minimum of 18 months to be able to carry out mass vaccination.

That means that we likely have a minimum of 18 months of continual spread of this infection.

During those 18 months a very large proportion of our population is likely to be infected.

If the speed of viral spread can be curtailed enough to prevent the health service being overwhelmed then there is no additional risk in reaching herd immunity in 6 months compared to 18.

If we achieve herd immunity more quickly then the economic damage will be less and therefore there will be less damage to human health.

It is currently the least bad option we have.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

No expert thinks 'herd immunity' should be obtained by letting the virus run through the population, you achieve it via a vaccine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/number-coronavirus...

Poor journalism, the confirmed cases are not even all the symptomatic cases, only those severe enough to reach hospital for treatment. If the number of real cases is only 500,000 we should not have had nearly as many deaths as we have.

Extending the current lockdown for a year while we wait for a vaccine that may not even come is not sustainable.

What do you think flattening the curve actually means?

It means reducing new infections and therefore hospitalisations and deaths. It does not mean, 'ooh, I hope we all catch this.'

You might not realise it...

This is a failure to understand the very basic facts of this pandemic, disguised as superior insight.

Please explain what will happen to immunity levels in society with a flattened curve of infection?

I can't wait for your insight.

Still pushing that nonsense? Are you Dominic Cummings?

Good point, the study that article is based on hasn't aged well. But...of course the official death toll still doesn't include non-hospital deaths, so the study's forecast might not be quite as distant from reality as it seems.

This article was published ten days ago, making a prediction that UK would be short of 85,000 hospital beds on 17 April (today). It was wrong.

And your comment has nothing to do with the orginal article.