eric76 said:The first wave of the Spanish flu killed fewer than have died from covid-19. The death rates during the first wave were supposedly not much higher than what would have been expected without the flu.SirLurksALot said:eric76 said:Even with all the medical advances over the last century, this is hardly a mild illness.SirLurksALot said:eric76 said:Flattening the curve could have likely been done by people acting rationally. We didn't need to shut it down, but we did need rational people.SirLurksALot said:eric76 said:I think that those who want the government to take such actions know something that the rest of us didn't quite understand -- that far too many people are too irresponsible to act intelligently to try to limit the spread of the virus.SirLurksALot said:eric76 said:That's a load of bull***** The hysterical are those who making arguments like that.Ragoo said:i think you are taking the "get rid of it" literally when it is meant figuratively. Herd immunity means hysteria goes away.eric76 said:Leprosy, aka Hansen's Disease, is still with us.Ragoo said:leprosy?eric76 said:I wasn't comparing it to smallpox. I was giving it as an example -- probably the only example -- of a disease that has been eradicated and it took a vaccine to do it.SirLurksALot said:eric76 said:Smallpox is considered to be eradicated from the planet as a result of vaccines and a lot of effort.Ragoo said:what does the president have to do with my reply? Smallpox existed for 470+ years. So what is your point?eric76 said:Talk about a Trump hyped non-answer.Ragoo said:who said eradicate?eric76 said:
Out of curiosity, has there ever been any disease that was eradicated by herd immunity absent vaccinations?
Herd immunity just means the spread slows way way down to the point that the media hype goes away.
Anyway, have you ever heard of smallpox? My understanding is that smallpox was eradicated as a result of vaccines.
Smallpox also existed in waves, what do you think caused a wave to end?
My question is simple -- has there been any diseases that were eradicated as a result of herd immunity that was not brought about by vaccines?
Covid doesn't compare to smallpox. Covid isn't going away even with a vaccine.
Are you suggesting that there is no such thing as hers immunity because no disease has been eradicated except thru a vaccine?
I still don't understand your point. Can you explain yourself better so we don't go around in pointless circles as typical a texags thread?
And I am not suggesting that there is no such thing as herd immunity. Where do you get these ideas?
A number of people are saying that it is a good thing for everyone to get the disease so that we can achieve herd immunity and get rid of it. That is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of.
So I'm asking if we have ever gotten rid of a disease by herd immunity other than by vaccination? That's a pretty straightforward question and I can't see why you keep stumbling over it.
Nope. The hysterical are those that support forcing suffering on millions through government actions that aren't even guaranteed to actually prevent any deaths.
Originally, I thought that a shutdown was a stupid idea because we could deal with it by acting intelligently. While I still don't support shutdowns, I can understand why those who do support them think that way.
There's no point in attempting to limit the spread of the virus. Once the virus became widespread outside of China further spreading was inevitable. Every human on earth that is connected to modern society will eventually encounter the virus.
The original stated objective of the restrictions was to flatten the curve. The goal posts only moved to stopping the spread once people realized that hospital resources weren't going to be over used.
I'd say it's rational not to alter your life for a mild illness. Apparently others disagree.
I don't know what else to call something in which the worst case, most unrealistically high scenario only predicted .6% of the population would die and of those deaths 70% are over 70 years old.
In reality we will have far fewer deaths than the worst case scenario. For comparison the Spanish Flu killed 400,000 people in this country in just 3 months and the population then was 1/3 of what it is today.
If covid-19 had hit in 1918 instead of the Spanish Flu, the death rates would have likely been far higher because of the medical care available then.
So if covid-19 is a mild disease, so was the Spanish Flu.
For those interested, here's a good presentation that talks to this idea.Keegan99 said:Quote:
Abstract
As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spreads, the susceptible subpopulation declines causing the rate at which new infections occur to slow down. Variation in individual susceptibility or exposure to infection exacerbates this effect. Individuals that are more susceptible or more exposed tend to be infected and removed from the susceptible subpopulation earlier. This selective depletion of susceptibles intensifies the deceleration in incidence. Eventually, susceptible numbers become low enough to prevent epidemic growth or, in other words, the herd immunity threshold is reached. Here we fit epidemiological models with inbuilt distributions of susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks to estimate basic reproduction numbers (R_0) alongside coefficients of individual variation (CV) and the effects of containment strategies. Herd immunity thresholds are then calculated as 1-(1R_0 )^(1((1+CV^2 ) )) or 1-(1R_0 )^(1((1+2CV^2 ) )), depending on whether variation is on susceptibility or exposure. Our inferences result in herd immunity thresholds around 10-20%, considerably lower than the minimum coverage needed to interrupt transmission by random vaccination, which for R_0 higher than 2.5 is estimated above 60%. We emphasize that the classical formula, 1-1R_0 , remains applicable to describe herd immunity thresholds for random vaccination, but not for immunity induced by infection which is naturally selective. These findings have profound consequences for the governance of the current pandemic given that some populations may be close to achieving herd immunity despite being under more or less strict social distancing measures.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762v1
