Latest Covid-19 stats/thoughts on herd immunity

[Ellener]

I know it's too soon to come to many conclusions but I was just looking at the deaths per million population comparing Sweden and USA, 500 and 370 respectively.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries figures are here.

Sweden has been excluded from much of the Scandinavian tourist economy for now ( Finland, Denmark and Norway ) and it looks like their 'herd immunity' experiment does not work very quickly, by late May studies show just 7% of the population with Covid-19 antibodies. Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said last week:

The strategy has never been to achieve a certain level of immunity... Our strategy has always been to keep the level of spread on a level that is so low that it does not affect society or healthcare in any catastrophic way and that has been achieved. Knowing the level of immunity has more to do about, OK, what do we need to continue doing and what do we need to add to become even better after the summer.

In a previous interview he said:

If we were to encounter the same disease again knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done.

There's another ongoing study there to see what those measures are likely to be, but it looks like face covering might be recommended in future outbreaks.

 

[SincereOnlineGuy]

This whole thing about Sweden is more a function of people not having been in a big hurry to go to the frozen far north during the winter when Covid was springing to life... AND even if/though Sweden itself never closed its borders, the fact that Finland and Norway did, largely reduced the numbers of OUTSIDERS who could potentially have brought Covid to the icy north.

Covid data is surely even better for South Sentinel Island... and it doesn't matter whether they're wearing Parkas, bikinis, or sleeping 7 to a bunk on South Sentinel Island if nobody ever brings Covid around.

 

It isn't as if Sweden has some magical stance against Covid...  its just... nobody was going there in great numbers when Covid sprang up.

 

Covid travels where people travel...  and just not that many were inclined to travel to Sweden in the dead of winter.

 

It helps to have modern medical facilities for use when somebody does come down with something...  but aside from that, Sweden is a non-issue.

 

 

[Foxhall]

Its far from over anyway seems to be the clear message from that chart, 

How many more cases are in Brazil and similar countries if you consider their low level of testing.

[snowboy91]

I think it's a bit hard to make any realistic conclusions unless you measure the fraction of people gaining immunity out of those who have had the virus. For a lot of countries testing for either (and often both) of those is quite poor, so there's not a lot of solid data on that.

Depending on the virus, herd immunity to suppress spread is on the order of anywhere between 60% and 90% of the population. Which means that assuming everyone infected becomes immune (and that's not true - although I can't find any data on what % of infected people become immune), you still need to infect the majority (>60%) of the population. No country is anywhere near that point.

On the flip side, there are probably enough people getting infected that if subsequent re-infection was a serious issue, we would be seeing it a lot more than we are. What's more is that while there have been mutations to this virus, some studies suggest they don't appear significant enough to escape the immune factors from previous mutations. So if we get a vaccine, herd immunity could significantly suppress the virus (eradication would be a much longer game, but a possible one). Without one, we'd be killing far too many people to try and achieve the same level of immunity.

[Ellener]

@snowboy91

We're 6 months into this now from the initial panic at knowing nothing and not knowing what to do to beginning to form a consensus for moving forward:

*waiting for 'herd immunity' is socially unacceptable in most communities because of the human life cost to our elders and their families 

*face coverings, hand washing and social distancing limit the transmission and are becoming universal public health policy

*there is a fine balance between enforcing and suggesting public health policy

*emergency resources are best coordinated at a community level, there will be no 'one disaster response fits all'

*we are all waiting on scientists to develop treatments and a vaccine and on our politicians and community leaders to keep our lives functioning until the pandemic ends.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Ellener

[chillii]

Swedens coming up to 70k with not even close to slowing. Only 10mil people and rurally spread out at that, with a large number living alone , you could just imagine how that would end anywhere else.

Found a world chart yesterday and that lines still heading straight up on a 45% since jan and has actually spiked up even higher in this last week. So even with some countries opening again so many new ones coming into this it's gonna be a long long long haul worldwide unless a vac appears . What's going on in the world is just effg mind boggling isn't it.

Edited June 29, 2020 by chillii

[regine_phalange]

Personal opinion. It's too early and too risky to talk about herd community. The disease is very recent and we still don't know the long term effects of the infection on the body, years after. Yeah, maybe and hopefully we will catch the virus once, but what if it it quietly damages our body from this one time?  Also, herd immunity, as far as I know, is normally achieved through vaccination and not so much through direct exposure to the disease.

I don't want to stress out anyone reading this and I'm not a medic, I just think governments should not go around experimenting and using buzzwords while we don't have complete knowledge of this disease. I would rather if they said that we just can't afford lockdown. 

[elaine567]

Despite over 40,000 dead, a public health guy this week said that only approx  5% of people in the UK are estimated to have had the virus.
We are nowhere near achieving herd immunity.

Even in Sweden

Quote

Instead of 50 to 60 per cent of the population being infected – close to the level required for herd immunity – it was actually not even one in ten, and probably far less than that outside Stockholm.

 

[BC1980]

I'm don't think we can actually reach full herd immunity with COVID because it's doubtful that the immunity you get via infection will last long enough. It's not the same as being able to reach full herd immunity via vaccine, which is possible with vaccines (chicken pox I believe is an example) that offer decades or life-long immunity. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by BC1980

[Ellener]

On 6/29/2020 at 1:42 AM, chillii said:

What's going on in the world is just effg mind boggling isn't it.

Well, to be fair, communications weren't developed to this level the last time the world had a pandemic, except for AIDS which has just statistically bobbed up and down for decades now, and we all just got used to it in the background of our lives. Maybe that's what will happen with Covid-19?

[Ellener]

On 6/29/2020 at 5:22 AM, regine_phalange said:

we still don't know the long term effects of the infection on the body, years after.

Yes, it does seem to cause some lung damage like many lung infections, pulmonary fibrosis.

I can just remember the end of tuberculosis in the UK, decades after the pasteurisation of milk, and two decades after vaccination. 'Patch on me lung' people would say. 

We have been living in privileged times with antibiotics and medical engineering technology.

Covid-19 is a wake-up call.