The blithe reference to “herd immunity” (or, as #45 put it, “herd mentality”) is just another way to say “ignore it and it will go away.” In plain fact, herd immunity is ONLY developed in one of two ways:
1. A critical mass of people – 80%, give or take, more for some diseases – get vaccines which immunize them
2. A critical mass of people survive the virus because they managed to develop immunity in the course of being exposed to the virus, and everyone else dies.
Since we have no vaccine – and, make no mistake, we are very, very unlikely to have one before 2021, if we ever do – the administration’s official stance is therefore: “let ’em die. The survivors will be immune.”
But the facts are even worse than that. It is not yet clear whether having developed immunity, it will stick! There has been a documented case of someone getting COVID-19 twice. If you cannot get and sustain immunity in a critical mass of people, herd immunity is impossible.
The blithe reference to “herd immunity” (or, as #45 put it, “herd mentality”) is just another way to say “ignore it and it will go away.” In plain fact, herd immunity is ONLY developed in one of two ways:
1. A critical mass of people – 80%, give or take, more for some diseases – get vaccines which immunize them
2. A critical mass of people survive the virus because they managed to develop immunity in the course of being exposed to the virus, and everyone else dies.
Since we have no vaccine – and, make no mistake, we are very, very unlikely to have one before 2021, if we ever do – the administration’s official stance is therefore: “let ’em die. The survivors will be immune.”
But the facts are even worse than that. It is not yet clear whether having developed immunity, it will stick! There has been a documented case of someone getting COVID-19 twice. If you cannot get and sustain immunity in a critical mass of people, herd immunity is impossible.