Why Severe Social Distancing Might Result In More Deaths: What media and policymakers won't tell us

NightHawkeye

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Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths: What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die.

The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).

This is not new or breaking science.
...
A partial quarantine would still cause some initial stress on the medical system since the overall number of young or healthy individuals who would contract COVID-19 will not change with either a full or partial quarantine. The vast majority of these cases would be mild, however. Therefore, there may still be a slightly higher use of the medical system up front if we move to a partial quarantine as described herein. This could also lead to some deaths.

Herein lies the dilemma, or Sophie’s choice, of dealing with COVID-19. A full quarantine will result in the deaths of more elderly and medically ill people because more of them will become infected. A partial quarantine would likely result in a greater number of mild infections in young and healthy individuals upfront (but not total).

How many more elderly or medically ill people will die due to a full quarantine? It is hard to say, but a conservative estimate would be 5-10 times the number of young and healthy people who may die from a partial quarantine, based on fatality rates published by the CDC
.​
 

Jonathan Walkerin

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That is just stupid. We get herd immunity when we get people vaccinated or the Covid runs through the planet a few times.

If everyone gets infected now it just means health infrastructure can’t handle the load and people will die that would have survived it they got infected later when we have a vaccine and more intense care units available.

What is so hard to understand on this ?
 
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rambot

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Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths: What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die.

The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).

This is not new or breaking science.
...
A partial quarantine would still cause some initial stress on the medical system since the overall number of young or healthy individuals who would contract COVID-19 will not change with either a full or partial quarantine. The vast majority of these cases would be mild, however. Therefore, there may still be a slightly higher use of the medical system up front if we move to a partial quarantine as described herein. This could also lead to some deaths.

Herein lies the dilemma, or Sophie’s choice, of dealing with COVID-19. A full quarantine will result in the deaths of more elderly and medically ill people because more of them will become infected. A partial quarantine would likely result in a greater number of mild infections in young and healthy individuals upfront (but not total).

How many more elderly or medically ill people will die due to a full quarantine? It is hard to say, but a conservative estimate would be 5-10 times the number of young and healthy people who may die from a partial quarantine, based on fatality rates published by the CDC
.​
Wow.

This is tough.

Do I listen to The Federalist for pandemic health advice or every single health and pandemic professional on the planet.

Why give this biased rag air? What good are they doing providing contradictory, poor advice?

Man, I'm sooooooo torn.
 
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Jonathan Walkerin

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When will a vaccine be available? How many times will Covid-19 run through the planet before then?

Unknown.

That doesn’t make this idea of five minute herd immunity any better.

There is only so much ICU capacity around.

If you just look at economics it would indeed be better to just let the virus sweep through everyone.

Vast majority of fatalities would be old people or people with severe handicaps already that it would probably be way more profitable to get rid of than keep around.

However most people object to that. Some feel like it is not the most.....Christian thing you could do.
 
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rambot

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Unknown.

That doesn’t make this idea of five minute herd immunity any better.

There is only so much ICU capacity around.

If you just look at economics it would indeed be better to just let the virus sweep through everyone.

Vast majority of fatalities would be old people or people with severe handicaps already that it would probably be way more profitable to get rid of than keep around.

However most people object to that. Some feel like it is not the most.....Christian thing you could do.
Yeah. I doubt the Federalists and some of its readership have much interest in the Christian thing to do if they can't make money.
 
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hedrick

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This was the UK's original approach. They abandoned it when projections were that the number of sick people would overwhelm hospitals.
The original UK approach was to protect older people and let younger people get the virus. This made some sense if you looked only at death rates, though more recent numbers suggest significant risks for middle age people. The problem as far as I can tell is that the hospitalization rate isn't as skewed towards older people as the death rate.

See Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19 Note that the graph is a bit misleading, as one of the bars includes 20-44, which is a much larger range than the others.
 
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Hank77

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On top of that, the professionals don't know how much or how long there may be immunity to this virus. Someone posted a video in a thread of the top doctor in charge in South Korea. He was asked about immunity and he said they knew of one case where a person had gotten it twice so they didn't have immunity.
My son got the chickenpox twice. The doctor said it was because the first time was such a mild case that he didn't build up immunity. I know this is a very different virus but the truth about CoVID-19 is they just aren't sure yet what immunity will look like.
 
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Subduction Zone

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Wow.

This is tough.

Do I listen to The Federalist for pandemic health advice or every single health and pandemic professional on the planet.

Why give this biased rag air? What good are they doing providing contradictory, poor advice?

Man, I'm sooooooo torn.
the lockdown has me going nuts too. But not crazy enough to rely on such a poor source.
 
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Sparagmos

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Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths: What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die.

The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).

This is not new or breaking science.
...
A partial quarantine would still cause some initial stress on the medical system since the overall number of young or healthy individuals who would contract COVID-19 will not change with either a full or partial quarantine. The vast majority of these cases would be mild, however. Therefore, there may still be a slightly higher use of the medical system up front if we move to a partial quarantine as described herein. This could also lead to some deaths.

Herein lies the dilemma, or Sophie’s choice, of dealing with COVID-19. A full quarantine will result in the deaths of more elderly and medically ill people because more of them will become infected. A partial quarantine would likely result in a greater number of mild infections in young and healthy individuals upfront (but not total).

How many more elderly or medically ill people will die due to a full quarantine? It is hard to say, but a conservative estimate would be 5-10 times the number of young and healthy people who may die from a partial quarantine, based on fatality rates published by the CDC
.​
That article focused on protecting “high risk” individuals, but did not address the fact that due to the high rate of hospitalizations we are seeing even among low risk individuals, our hospitals will not be able to handle the number of patients who need respirators and even low risk people will die because they can’t get basic medical care. And frankly, why you would put the advice of an anonymous writer in the federalist over medical and scientific experts?
 
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NightHawkeye

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That article focused on protecting “high risk” individuals, but did not address the fact that due to the high rate of hospitalizations we are seeing even among low risk individuals, our hospitals will not be able to handle the number of patients who need respirators and even low risk people will die because they can’t get basic medical care. And frankly, why you would put the advice of an anonymous writer in the federalist over medical and scientific experts?
One might note that this is a DISCUSSION forum. I tend to post articles which I find interesting and believe are worth discussing. Sometimes I mostly agree with the articles I post; sometimes I mostly disagree. All times I believe the subject worthy of discussion.

Obviously, herd immunity is central to stopping the spread of COVID-19. The "medical and scientific experts" to whom you refer indicate that herd immunity will not develop until a vaccine has been developed and that any vaccine will not be available for at least another year, possibly longer. A year will be a long time in the course of this virus.

The question which must be answered is, what is the best course of action over the next year or so as we wait for a vaccine? The so-called "medical and scientific experts" to whom you refer have not been very forthcoming about what the best course of action for this extended period of time should be. You might recall that initially they simply recommended a two-week shutdown. Now, that two weeks has been extended to at least a month. Some places have extended things even longer, much longer.
 
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essentialsaltes

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KCfromNC

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What is so hard to understand on this ?
Nothing in particular, it is just that some groups need to come up with excuses to reopen businesses despite the fact that it is going to end up getting people killed.
 
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lasthero

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That is just stupid. We get herd immunity when we get people vaccinated or the Covid runs through the planet a few times.

If everyone gets infected now it just means health infrastructure can’t handle the load and people will die that would have survived it they got infected later when we have a vaccine and more intense care units available.

What is so hard to understand on this ?
It’s actually really hard to understand people when you don’t listen to them.
 
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A_Thinker

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Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths: What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die.

The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).

This is not new or breaking science.
...
A partial quarantine would still cause some initial stress on the medical system since the overall number of young or healthy individuals who would contract COVID-19 will not change with either a full or partial quarantine. The vast majority of these cases would be mild, however. Therefore, there may still be a slightly higher use of the medical system up front if we move to a partial quarantine as described herein. This could also lead to some deaths.

Herein lies the dilemma, or Sophie’s choice, of dealing with COVID-19. A full quarantine will result in the deaths of more elderly and medically ill people because more of them will become infected. A partial quarantine would likely result in a greater number of mild infections in young and healthy individuals upfront (but not total).

How many more elderly or medically ill people will die due to a full quarantine? It is hard to say, but a conservative estimate would be 5-10 times the number of young and healthy people who may die from a partial quarantine, based on fatality rates published by the CDC
.​
If 50% of the US population becomes infected, ... 1.5 million people will die in the process ...
 
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Kessa

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Who are you nominating to run the gamut and risk severe health complications or death for the sake of the economy? Even healthy, fit people in their 20s and 30s are dying. You don't have to be old, out of shape, or chronically ill to die of this disease.

Shelter-in-place is the best we have until a vaccine is developed and/or a cure is found. A true quarantine where people stay home except for absolute essentials is the best way to minimize exposures and deaths. Unfortunately, we're still not doing that in this country. Even in states with shelter-in-place orders, companies are demanding workers come in for non-essential projects, churches members are congregating for services, people in grocery stores are failing to keep their distance, and people are not following rules prohibiting gatherings with other households and relatives who live in a different home. Until the quarantine is taken seriously by everyone and enforced by law, the virus will spread and people will die. More people breaking quarantine will endanger everyone. The people who develop coronavirus from acting foolish will also hog up space and resources needed by others suffering the usual heart attacks, broken ankles, cancer and burns, so even more people will die. I don't know about you but I have people in my family who need regular medical treatment and will not be able to get it if the resources are used up and the hospitals are full. Sending more people out there to risk their health and very lives will only exacerbate the problem. Sit tight, stay home, and wait for the vaccine or for hydrochloraquine to be approved.
 
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Hank77

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Who are you nominating to run the gamut and risk severe health complications or death for the sake of the economy?
People who publically encourage this behavior and say they are willing to die for the sake of the economy, such as Glenn Beck, should be held to their statements. They shouldn't receive any hospital care and die at home and alone so that they don't infect others. I guarantee that when they can't catch their breath they will be thinking twice about that commitment.
 
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