US Achieves Herd Immunity By April

[billeau2]

Possibly but it would have been at the cost of many times times more deaths (estimates range from between about 5 to 15) and billions of lost work hours.... which arguably would have been more disruptive and caused more lost of income and had a greater impact on essential services which would in turn have had a concommitant knock on effect.

Occur to you that part of the reason some folk are able to say it wasn't that serious was precisely because of the aggressive measures used to tackle it?

Course... there is an argument that these kinds of things - pandemics, natural disasters and so on - are just natures way of culling the weak, keeping the species strong and healthy and getting rid of the deadwood... strikes me you might be one of those kinds of dudes.

Vaccines are an equally important way to fight... Without them we would be a lot more "culled." Polio, measles, all these horrid diseases destroyed the quality of life for people... Like most things there is a balance to achieve. I believe the concept of vaccinating against a disease is as old as the hills: It is in Homeopathy, it was used in ancient China.

Ultimately Herd immunity is a passive response. It will effect with no particular effort needed on the part of the human community, as long as no group isolates unnaturally from the rest of humanity. The only thing we can do is decide when the cost of natural resistance is higher than the cost of protecting the group from the disease. Vaccinations are a much more proactive measure.

IMO we need to aggresively target certain groups with vaccines.

[Boxfan83]

Damn ***** works fast...

[Citizen Koba]

Vaccines are an equally important way to fight... Without them we would be a lot more "culled." Polio, measles, all these horrid diseases destroyed the quality of life for people... Like most things there is a balance to achieve. I believe the concept of vaccinating against a disease is as old as the hills: It is in Homeopathy, it was used in ancient China.

Ultimately Herd immunity is a passive response. It will effect with no particular effort needed on the part of the human community, as long as no group isolates unnaturally from the rest of humanity. The only thing we can do is decide when the cost of natural resistance is higher than the cost of protecting the group from the disease. Vaccinations are a much more proactive measure.

IMO we need to aggresively target certain groups with vaccines.

Yeah, I'm not really a believer in the idea that we should just allow natural selection to do it's thing... To my mind the optimal solutions are those which minimise the overall amount of death and suffering although even that involves a kind of macabre calculus... for instance how do you weigh a death caused by lockdown mental health crisis or domestic abuse against a COVID death in an elderly patient? How many COVID deaths weigh the same as a hundred evictions due to lost income?

There's no easy answers, although my personal belief is that saving as many lives as possible should carry most weight... People can get new jobs, new homes and so on, but once someone's dead that subjective universe of knowledge and experience - and all it has to offer the world - is gone for good.

[billeau2]

Yeah, I'm not really a believer in the idea that we should just allow natural selection to do it's thing... To my mind the optimal solutions are those which minimise the overall amount of death and suffering although even that involves a kind of macabre calculus... for instance how do you weigh a death caused by lockdown mental health crisis or domestic abuse against a COVID death in an elderly patient? How many COVID deaths weigh the same as a hundred evictions due to lost income?

There's no easy answers, although my personal belief is that saving as many lives as possible should carry most weight... People can get new jobs, new homes and so on, but once someone's dead that subjective universe of knowledge and experience - and all it has to offer the world - is gone for good.

Yup! Minimize suffering and maximize life. The nice thing is that saving lives (maximizing a "good") automatically minimizes suffering. On the other hand sending someone to prison for life after a law, that does not seem fair in the particular case, causes some suffering for a net smaller amount of suffering: So, it is decided that a three strike law ultimately causes less harm and more good in society. Yet, someone, in being consistent in applying the law, steals a video tape from a store (this really happened ) goes to prison for life, because it is the "third" strike. The specific case is flawed, but because the law has a greater net calculus of good versus suffering, the law is upheld.

I mention this because it speaks to your statement that "saving as many lives as possible" maximizes the good. I agree, and its nice to have a situation where things are simple in that regard. We should do what we can to preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That which takes life necessarily also takes Liberty and happiness.

[Furn]

Covid-19 is 1 of many covid strains

There will be more in the future as well

Covid-19 already has mutated several times

I believe the covid-19 that hit the u.s. hard isn't even the same one that hit asia

Usa covid-19 is the European variant iirc

Sure but the common cold is caused by 1000s of completely different viruses including 3 types of coronvirus.