Covid 19 virus

[flyte]

Let nature do its thing and let the virus freely spread. Expect extreme cruelty from a society point of view, all weakest will die without medical care due to health infrastructure overload, with the benefit of very rapid group immunity and this "being over soon".

By that theory, we would have eradicated measles and polio for long.
Herd immunity will never work unless you forcefully contact everyone with the virus.

Please quote the right way. I've said those were the ends of the spectrum, not some realistic options.

And yes, this kind of spreading would probably work to achieve rapid and broad global population immunity, unless the virus mutates very frequently (another danger). The high degree of contagiousness and rapid spread would boil down to a forceful contact. Polio is almost eradicated, for practical matters, much less with measles due to the absence of vaccinations in poor countries and infection of newborns, but both can be said to be "under control" compared to a pandemic like the current one. Total eradication and widespread immunity are different things.

[Cerebus]

Let nature do its thing and let the virus freely spread. Expect extreme cruelty from a society point of view, all weakest will die without medical care due to health infrastructure overload, with the benefit of very rapid group immunity and this "being over soon".

By that theory, we would have eradicated measles and polio for long.
Herd immunity will never work unless you forcefully contact everyone with the virus.

Whether herd immunity develops depends on how widespread an infection is, and that in turn depends on how good an infection is at spreading itself. There's a minimum level of infectiousness for a disease before it is capable of naturally generating herd immunity. The 1918 flu epidemic was infectious enough and that's why it eventually died out. Other diseases aren't sufficiently infectious enough for a sufficient proportion of the population to develop active immunity to the same strain in a short enough period of time for herd immunity to naturally occur. We don't yet know for a fact, but it looks like SARS-Covid-2 likely meets the criteria for a virus that would, eventually, trigger herd immunity.

Of course we have an artificial method of inducing herd immunity for many diseases by inoculation with a vaccine. That creates the same active immune response in a large proportion of the population exactly as if we had "forcefully contact[ed] everyone with the virus". This fails to create herd immunity unless a critical portion of the population is inoculated (e.g. outbreaks of measles in modern times as certain individuals have declined to have their children inoculated against measles).

Herd immunity 101 - Just for the benefit of those who don't know what some of us mean by herd immunity.
Herd immunity is where some, but not all, individuals in a population are immune to a disease in a way that effectively protects the whole population from that disease. The idea is that enough individuals have active immunity^* to a specific disease that should a single individual (who is still susceptible to the disease) catch the disease it won't spread. If enough individuals have active immunity then the chance of an infected individual contacting and infecting another susceptible individual before they have either recovered or died from a disease is significantly reduced. It doesn't mean that the disease can't spread at all, but that its chances of spreading are so reduced that only odd individual cases will be seen instead of outbreaks involving many individuals.

^*Active immunity (also called specific immunity) - where an individual has either had a disease and recovered, or been vaccinated against the disease so that they have antibodies to the disease, This allows the immune system to immediately recognise a disease and mount a defence to it as soon as the disease organism is encountered. Contrast with passive or non-specific immunity where a disease organism has to be causing problems before the body mounts a defence, by which time it's already a disease in progress. It's like the bouncers on the door of a club having the photo of a troublemaker rather than having to wait for a fight to have broken out (that might spread) before dealing with the troublemaker.

[Cerebus]

In reality, the orange line and green line models would need to be accompanied with another action region (another blue region) to mitigate the secondary peaks. This would cause tertiary peaks, but they would be even smaller.

If you read the whole paper you'll see that they do model a situation where there are restrictions, they are lifted when spread slows, reapplied when spread speeds up again, and this pattern is repeated.

[iMo]

..
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.

Where this 1% comes from??

[Cerebus]

Whatever book Boris was reading, it must be as deadly as Mein Kampf.

Naa, the Home Secretary has lent him a copy of this, and Nanny has tucked him up with a glass of warm milk:

[Cerebus]

..
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.

Where this 1% comes from??

Imperial report, page 7, 510,000 deaths.

[flyte]

And yes, this kind of spreading would probably work to achieve rapid and broad global population immunity.

Herd immunity is gained by infecting or vaccinating P amount of population where P is at least 1-1/R. For COVID19, R0 is estimated to be 3, so P must be above 2/3.
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.
1% of 66.7% of 66M population is 440k assuming no vaccine comes out soon. WW2 killed 450K British people including civilians. Whatever book Boris was reading, it must be as deadly as Mein Kampf.

...
I see no reason why surrender is a good idea, even if herd immunity is used as a last line of defense weapon.

You're again cherry-picking my quotes. I've never said this would actually be a solution let alone a good idea. It's the theoretical end of a spectrum, the other hypothetical end being a complete freeze of human interaction. I've repeated this several times above, of course this would be an uttermost cruel solution from a society point of view. And so far mortality rate has been 3-3.5% for the known infected about everywhere, so indeed real mortality rate over all infected won't be anything lower than 1-2% of the actual population. That's why people should worry, taking me back to my first posts in this threads. If Boris is really thinking of this for the UK as you said, he's going to end up in history books, on the bad side.

[flyte]

..
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.

Where this 1% comes from??

Current mortality rates on known infected individuals are in the 3-3.5% range (last time I've checked at least, but it has been pretty much the same since the outbreak in China). However, more individuals get infected than just the known cases, who present few or no symptoms, or simply because countries can't test everyone. So this lowers the real mortality rate vs. a population. Experts think this would take it down to about 1% or so, taking the infected individuals into account who stayed under the radar. But this is still a vast number of individuals, as correctly pointed out by the reply poster, assuming you would do nothing to contain the outbreak.

[flyte]

You're again cherry-picking my quotes.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against you, I was just posting against the extreme solution that you referred, not the one you proposed.

To be very clear: the extreme endpoint I've mentioned is just that, an endpoint, not a solution. At least not a humane one. Anyone advocating such horrors would be on his own morals and history will judge him or her, as far as it concerns me. The danger with this virus' cocktail of properties, is exactly that: if you do nothing as a population, you're heading for straight horror.

[iMo]

..
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.

Where this 1% comes from??

Current mortality rates on known infected individuals are in the 3-3.5% range (last time I've checked at least, but it has been pretty much the same since the outbreak in China). However, more individuals get infected than just the known cases, who present few or no symptoms, or simply because countries can't test everyone. So this lowers the real mortality rate vs. a population. Experts think this would take it down to about 1% or so, taking the infected individuals into account who stayed under the radar. But this is still a vast number of individuals, as correctly pointed out by the reply poster, assuming you would do nothing to contain the outbreak.

That number is pretty important one, I would say. The issue I see is the CFR values I've seen and heard in last 2 weeks varies from 15 to 0.1.

For example a report from 2014 on H1N1 influenza 2009 pandemic CFRs:

There is very substantial heterogeneity in published estimates of case fatality risk for H1N1pdm09, ranging from <1 to >10,000 per 100,000 infections

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3809029/

[maginnovision]

I even read US people are going to buy weapons like crazy ... I do not know if they are afraid somebody comes and steal their stock of toilet paper or if the pretend to kill the virus by shooting 

My grandfather had a TON of weapons and roughly 60,000 rounds of ammo. He slept with a gun under his pillow and a shotgun under his mattress. He literally never hurt anybody and died with not only a stockpile but highly illegal weapons as well that people are afraid of, luckily guns can't shoot themselves. For some people it's just a thing they do, for others they're crazy. You never know what is going to make someone comfortable but it doesn't mean they're going to do anything wrong, they're mostly just trying to make themselves feel safe. It can backfire but I'd rather even wackos feel safe rather than paranoid.

[james_s]

I think a lot of the wackos are just hoarders, you see the same thing with test equipment. Nobody really needs 10 guns just like nobody really needs 10 oscilloscopes but when something is a hobby we tend to accumulate more of whatever items we enjoy tinkering with than we really need. Also some people really are nutty, although I gotta say, after seeing the panic, hoarding and generally bizarre behavior occurring around the Covid virus the crazy guys with hideouts full of supplies and weapons in rural Idaho and such don't look quite as crazy as they did. I shudder to think what will happen when a much more deadly virus comes along, even this one is going to cause MASSIVE economic fallout. I would not be surprised if more people die due to losing their jobs and in turn losing their healthcare, food and eventually shelter than die from contracting the virus. A massive recession or depression WILL kill people.

[Mr. Scram]

Social pressure only works in groups of less than 2,000 or so people.  In cities like Helsinki, where a lot of people have moved to the city as young adults, anonymity is used as a shield against social pressure.  It is like backlash, after growing up in smaller circles where everybody knew you; suddenly you find yourself having the ability to sidestep all social pressure, and do what you want: it's not like they know you.

I do see a lot of young people just completely disregarding any quarantine efforts.  However, I've also seen indications I haven't seen here before, youngsters occasionally offering help to older people they don't know.  That could have been just a random occurrence, though.

What I do know, is that Finns will quietly (grumbling to themselves and their friends) do what they are told, as long as everyone has to do the same.

You let any subset of people off the hook, and very soon nobody will do it.  That sort of fairness is at the core of being a Finn.  "Is there really a need for social distancing, when our borders are kept open for humanitarian immigration?"  "If humanitarian immigrants get to travel as they wish, why should I stay home?"  It is this last one, that will bite Finland in the ass, I believe.

Now that we know that the virus becomes infectitious within a day or two, while the symptoms take around five days to become apparent, social distancing -- or whatever that makes people who believe they are not infected to behave as if they were, and stop spreading the virus around -- and quarantines are even more important than originally believed.  When the symptoms are detectable, the person has been spreading the virus already for days.  That is what we must try to limit here.

"There has to be a way to implicate immigrants in this mess."

[tautech]

Nobody really needs 10 guns .............

If it's a pursuit you don't partake in you can be excused for thinking such however for those that do and partake in the many sporting disciplines 10 might not be enough.
Like screwdrivers, you need a different one for each job.

[flyte]

That number is pretty important one, I would say. The issue I see is the CFR values I've seen and heard in last 2 weeks varies from 15 to 0.1.

We're in the wild guessing range so it seems. There is shortage of everything, including test kits. So figures are off. The WHO wants countries to test more so they get their numbers right, but what do you do when there's a limited amount of tests left in the field? They mainly reserve them for hospitalized patients or severe cases. Others with suspect symptoms are told to stay at home and call emergency when its gets really worse, period.

But before hell broke lose on this side of the globe and all was in China, I've counted mortality several times and always came in that 3-3.5% range. At that time, one could suppose there were still sufficient test kits available. So an actual total mortality rate of 1% in an uncontrolled situation makes sense. Taking into account untested individuals, the no-symptom individuals and individuals that build up immunity and slow the spreading down. I suspect the latter is going to be really limited, given the speed the infection is progressing and the total absence of immunity. Over time, yes, but not now.

Observing these numbers I found them worrying and weeks ago I spoke about them once in a while. They were usually met with some laughter and "ok, shall we get another drink now?". Now we're here.

[Mr. Scram]

Herd immunity is gained by infecting or vaccinating P amount of population where P is at least 1-1/R. For COVID19, R0 is estimated to be 3, so P must be above 2/3.
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.
1% of 66.7% of 66M population is 440k assuming no vaccine comes out soon. WW2 killed 450K British people including civilians. Whatever book Boris was reading, it must be as deadly as Mein Kampf.

66.7% is a big number, but it is still feasible, if killing 440k people is an option.
For measles, its R0 is higher, and thus its P must also be higher. Its estimated R0 is 12~18. Let's take 12, then P must be above 92% to eradicate it. The current vaccination rate is 86%.

The previous calculation was based on R=R0, but in reality R can be reduced if protection measures such as locking down and mandatory mask wearing are implemented.
With reduction of R, there is reduction of P, thus saving of lives.
I see no reason why surrender is a good idea, even if herd immunity is used as a last line of defense weapon.

It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked. It's not unlikely the period after the major wave has unusually low numbers of people dying as the more fragile citizens are already gone. The vast majority of the population has much better chances than 1 in 100 and a small portion is at significant risk.

[paulca]

It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked. It's not unlikely the period after the major wave has unusually low numbers of people dying as the more fragile citizens are already gone. The vast majority of the population has much better chances than 1 in 100 and a small portion is at significant risk.

It was the second wave of the Spanish flu that killed nearly every person it infected.

[maginnovision]

Herd immunity is gained by infecting or vaccinating P amount of population where P is at least 1-1/R. For COVID19, R0 is estimated to be 3, so P must be above 2/3.
Even if UK has the best health care and infinite resource to take care of everyone, it would at best be able to get mortality rate down to 1%.
1% of 66.7% of 66M population is 440k assuming no vaccine comes out soon. WW2 killed 450K British people including civilians. Whatever book Boris was reading, it must be as deadly as Mein Kampf.

66.7% is a big number, but it is still feasible, if killing 440k people is an option.
For measles, its R0 is higher, and thus its P must also be higher. Its estimated R0 is 12~18. Let's take 12, then P must be above 92% to eradicate it. The current vaccination rate is 86%.

The previous calculation was based on R=R0, but in reality R can be reduced if protection measures such as locking down and mandatory mask wearing are implemented.
With reduction of R, there is reduction of P, thus saving of lives.
I see no reason why surrender is a good idea, even if herd immunity is used as a last line of defense weapon.

It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked. It's not unlikely the period after the major wave has unusually low numbers of people dying as the more fragile citizens are already gone. The vast majority of the population has much better chances than 1 in 100 and a small portion is at significant risk.

The coronavirus will almost certainly kill me but the flu wouldn't and it's pretty unlikely I'd die randomly anyway. I have severe asthma and just got discharged from the hospital for a pneumomediastinum. Anybody with COPD issues, or alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency is at much higher risk to this than most anything else they would have caught otherwise. This isn't something you should dismiss as just slightly accelerating the inevitable as it can kill a lot of people who otherwise have a lot of time left.

[thinkfat]

It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked. It's not unlikely the period after the major wave has unusually low numbers of people dying as the more fragile citizens are already gone. The vast majority of the population has much better chances than 1 in 100 and a small portion is at significant risk.

It was the second wave of the Spanish flu that killed nearly every person it infected.

Interestingly, the high total fatality count of the second wave was atypical and (according to Wikipedia) is attributed to the conditions in the front trenches during WW1. The second wave spread there and the severely sick soldiers were moved out of the battlefield in crowded trains, spreading the virus like crazy. It's atypical because (usually) the deadlier a virus strain, the less chance it gets for reproduction. Due to the conditions during WW1 the selection was reversed.

[not1xor1]

Daughter in France now has the symptoms of the corona virus, after someone at her work got it. She cannot go to hospital because the hospitals are now overwhelmed and there a serious lack of testing capability. The streets are in lock-down by law, but some people are ignoring it. The disease appears to be a lot more widespread than these figures are showing...
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

I don't think we will ever know how many people got this virus. Like the 1919 flu, the final figures will be just estimates.

I wish her a prompt recover.
In any case here in Italy they hospitalize just people with severe symptoms.
Most of affected cases are just quarantined at home as they manage to get over the disease with just flue-like symptoms.

[not1xor1]

The Goddamn experts can go to hell.  It were them saying 3 weeks ago that there is no need to close the  borders and they will never do it. Fuck your experts.

Experts are ok. I mean, real medical experts. WHO has given good advice; Chinese health experts have given good advice. They have also given good advice to the governments all over the world. But the governments didn't listen, because they are freaking stupid and the fear.

Politicians, and the health authorities have totally fucked it up almost everywhere; varying from a high, or even higher degree. But 99.99% of them are not actual experts.

For many, it's very confusing. For example, here I believe people have taken the official advice quite seriously, but because the official response has been two weeks too late from the start, it doesn't help. You need to listen to the actual experts directly, bypassing the officials (who add the 2-week delay). But only a small percentage of us does this.

To tell the truth nobody foresaw this kind of development, neither did WHO experts who at first thought that checking temperature with IR devices at the airports, like they did during SARS and MERS crisis, would have been enough.

Italian health minister was criticized because he had shut off all direct flights from China. He was a bit late, but if all the European countries had done the same and had tracked all people who had got from China during January there would be no pandemic now.

The virus got us off-guard because it didn't didn't get here from China. Italy was the first country just by chance. But apart Spain no other country has been able to learn from the unavoidable mistakes that have been made here at the beginning.

[not1xor1]

Although EU is closing its borders to curb the spread of the pandemic, Finland and Sweden have emphasized that humanitarian migrants can still cross our borders unhindered, because that's what is most important right now, right?

you're right.. that's nonsense... they will get infected too
This is a serious crisis, you have to evaluate carefully the priorities and act rationally.

[not1xor1]

This university dropout with no medical qualifications whatsoever warned of the virus pandemic with incredible insight... 5 YEARS AGO!

Anybody who's been a regular reader of New Scientist or similar level-headed board science journals/magazine could have told you that this is a "not of, but when" situation. There have been calls for better emergency preparedness for a pandemic going back to the 1980s when I started reading New Scientist.

the problem is that we have been just too lucky with SARS and MERS, while 2009 swine flue quickly became a mild disease (and some people even pretended that all plans and vaccines were made just to benefit the pharmaceutic industry), while Chinese and Asian in general had learnt from past experiences and made some plans for future outbreak.

[not1xor1]

Herd immunity is where some, but not all, individuals in a population are immune to a disease in a way that effectively protects the whole population from that disease. The idea is that enough individuals have active immunity^* to a specific disease that should a single individual (who is still susceptible to the disease) catch the disease it won't spread.

While coronavirus is likely to work that way, there are other viruses who are worse and worse once you catch them again (like dengue).

Besides that you can expect the virus to mutate as other human coronaviruses do and affect people each year with usually mild flue-like symptoms. I mean those coronaviruses that have been with us for centuries have not been wiped out by herd immunity.

[nctnico]

Herd immunity is where some, but not all, individuals in a population are immune to a disease in a way that effectively protects the whole population from that disease. The idea is that enough individuals have active immunity^* to a specific disease that should a single individual (who is still susceptible to the disease) catch the disease it won't spread.

While coronavirus is likely to work that way, there are other viruses who are worse and worse once you catch them again (like dengue).

Besides that you can expect the virus to mutate as other human coronaviruses do and affect people each year with usually mild flue-like symptoms. I mean those coronaviruses that have been with us for centuries have not been wiped out by herd immunity.

Agreed. I expect that -like the Mexican / swine flu- we'll see the Corona virus return every season. Which IMHO is why a vaccine is so important.