# Isn't the concept of herd immunity a bit absurd? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [July 7, 2020, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654 "2020-07-07T18:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/61 "2020-07-12T01:13:48Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Those who refuse to consider that a vaccine might not be here in time to save the day, that general complete lockdowns are highly likely not going to be complied with for an indefinite future of possibly years, and that the attempt to keep rates suppressed by contact tracing and quarantines might not be successful, are not taking this seriously. They are playing with peoples lives with their fantasy alt-world, secure in their minds that they can simply live comfortably blaming everyone else for the reality not being as they would imagine it could be. Do you think that places like Taiwan and New Zealand are waiting for a vaccine and not taking this seriously? AFAIK their daily case average is somewhere between zero and one. I could deal with that kind of unseriousness. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/62 "2020-07-12T03:07:03Z")
I think if their planners are only considering that their current approach will stay the course forever and not at least worrying about how to deal with it not doing so, in various ways, then they are indeed very unserious. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/63 "2020-07-12T03:55:11Z")
In this thread you’ve thrown a lot of shade about who is unserious, or naive, or just has unworkable ideas. You’re suggested that countries that have done admirable jobs containing the virus are not serious enough to your liking. If clamping down on new cases isn’t to your liking, but you’re not a fan of killing millions of people to get “herd immunity” (which may not be possible), and we agree that a vaccine may not be delivered in 2021 (if at all), what are you advocating for here? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/64 "2020-07-12T05:24:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > So. You accept the possibility that an effective safe widely utilized vaccine may not be just over the next [hill] Yes. I don’t think it’s very likely however, but I’m willing to discuss the possibility. There are a number of vaccines in human trials around the world right now. While we’ve never made a coronavirus vaccine, I’m confident this time, given the focus and importance, it will happen. A bigger worry for me is actually that we rush out a vaccine that works against covid, and later find it has long term side effect(s). > [@](#): > > , that indefinite or even intermittent general lockdowns are not going to be able to be sold (even if your assessment is that they held long term would do more net goods than harms), and that “all the other measures” are something that can be _hoped_ for, but might not happen. Well that part of my post was talking about the near future for the US specifically. I think any country that has a stable government and is not at war can implement lockdowns, testing and contract tracing effectively. And of course no reason the US cannot do all these things too. I’m just being realistic, that a strict lockdown, is not something that people in most parts of the US would accept this year. And I can understand that feeling, given the events so far this year. The other measures we can realistically hope will happen in the near future in the US. ---
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/65 "2020-07-12T08:22:58Z")
I just saw in the breaking news thread that Hawaii is seeing a bit of an uptick. I thought I read that Hawaii seemed pretty serious about measures to stamp the thing out, what with single-use hotel room keys and all. And then there’s Melbourne, with its new lockdown, in a place that also seemed pretty serious. It makes me wonder how the virus survived the measures against it, and whether it might still be around in some of those places like Taiwan or Mongolia or New Zealand. Or maybe if there’s some other reason why it didn’t take hold, or spread, in some places like it did others. ---
**Author:** ![RealityCheck71](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitycheck71/32/3493_2.png) [@RealityCheck71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityCheck71)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/66 "2020-07-12T12:20:10Z")
If you want lockdowns to work, you have to pay people to stay home. It is really as simple as that. Is it realistic that the US will implement that? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/67 "2020-07-12T14:14:40Z")
Good post / username combo. In answer to the question, it depends upon what timeframe we’re talking about. This year, and maybe the next? No, America has largely exceeded the amount of lockdown that people are willing and able to sustain, and no changes to social security are forthcoming. But the point that was being put to me a few posts ago, was what if we are waiting years for a vaccine, and in the meantime covid outbreaks flare up sporadically around the world? In that hypothetical, even the US might eventually get its act together, after years of watching other countries successfully snuff out sporadic outbreaks, and provide enough of a safety net that their businesses and industry are virtually unaffected. Even greedy and selfish people are going to notice what’s in their best interest. ---
**Author:** ![RealityCheck71](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitycheck71/32/3493_2.png) [@RealityCheck71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityCheck71)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/68 "2020-07-12T14:46:57Z")
It will take a big shift to happen. It’s setting up a whole new benefit program. This was the massive missing link from America’s response. That’s one of the reasons it drives me crazy that the US has decided to make masks the hill everyone wants to die on. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/69 "2020-07-12T15:15:39Z")
> [@RealityCheck71](#): > > It will take a big shift to happen. It’s setting up a whole new benefit program. I agree that it would take a lot for even an incremental change. But a years-long plague would certainly be a strong impetus. In fact, let’s put it this way: _some kind_ of extreme measures would happen in that timeframe; the question is only whether it would be common-sense measures, drawing on the experience of healthcare experts and governments around the world, or something fuckdumb. I wouldn’t rule out either possibility, so I’m sticking with my earlier “might”. The US _might_ get its act together. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/70 "2020-07-12T16:55:12Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > In this thread you’ve thrown a lot of shade about who is unserious, or naive, or just has unworkable ideas. You’re suggested that countries that have done admirable jobs containing the virus are not serious enough to your liking. > > If clamping down on new cases isn’t to your liking, but you’re not a fan of killing millions of people to get “herd immunity” (which may not be possible), and we agree that a vaccine may not be delivered in 2021 (if at all), what are you advocating for here? You misread. (And it is sort of cute to be accusing _me_ of throwing the shade in this thread.) I have stated, very clearly, that IF their planners not also considering futures in which they cannot maintain their low levels forever, THEN they would be being very “unserious.” If they are not very nervous about their approach happening to break down just as influenza picks up to, then are are not as worried as they should be. To the degree that they are behaving as if they have already won, and are not considering what a future in which SARS-CoV-2 is an endemic virus across the world looks like for them, I believe they are dropping the ball. More power to them for having, for whatever reasons, been in a position that travel restrictions coupled with aggressive contact tracing and isolation have been able to keep rates very low to date. Best wishes for them being able to maintain that for however long such is required. And sure hoping they are prepared for that not succeeding. My advocated positions have been written many times in this forum. [Here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-people-react-if-covid-19-flares-up-when-the-lockdown-ends/852805/141) and [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/establishing-criteria-for-dealing-with-pandemics/853735/37) for example. From the second - > [@](#): > > … Keeping the brakes fully applied until and if there is a vaccine is not a good plan. Depending on a vaccine as the only path is not a good plan. It is a great hope, but not a plan. > > Rushing to herd immunity is not a good plan. > > Cautiously finding _the moving point_ that maximally reduces the damages of the interventions while controlling the intensity of disease within the population within some, to be determined, acceptable parameters, hoping for a vaccine but meanwhile trying to advance to a path forward that lives with the disease if that is what the future requires … is not a good plan. It is however _the least poor one_ . And that parameter won’t be zero any more than it will be just below healthcare system capacity. … ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/71 "2020-07-12T17:16:39Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > My advocated positions have been written many times in this forum. [Here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-will-people-react-if-covid-19-flares-up-when-the-lockdown-ends/852805/141) and [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/establishing-criteria-for-dealing-with-pandemics/853735/37) for example. > From the second - You can’t seem to pull yourself away from attacking every proffered plan as being bad, or “least poor.” Or at least that’s what it seems like to me. What’s your idea of the best plan, subtracting the part of the commentary where you dump on everyone else’s ideas? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/72 "2020-07-12T17:17:11Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > … There are a number of vaccines in human trials around the world right now. While we’ve never made a coronavirus vaccine, I’m confident this time, given the focus and importance, it will happen. > > A bigger worry for me is actually that we rush out a vaccine that works against covid, and later find it has long term side effect(s). I hope for it but am much less confident of it than you are. Pretty much all the vaccine approaches come dow to the same thing. Pick a spike protein and by some method get antibodies (and maybe T-cells) reactive to it. If it ends up that doing that causes some problems, like antibody dependent enhancement, or excessive responses more often, then the problem is likely to occur for all attempts. Then there are the issues of how _well_ it works (90% less likely to get infected or 40%?) with quite a few experts already working on lowering expectations and the bar that would be considered success, how many will have access to it, and of them how many will be willing to take it. Eradicating this virus is very unlikely to happen. Even with a vaccine it seems very likely we will be living with it from here on out. Thinking about what that future looks like is essential and many here seem willfully ignorant of both the harms of the interventions they propose as long term approaches (right off it is already clear that many hundreds of thousands of children will die across the globe from vaccine preventable diseases not prevented because the shut downs have halted global vaccine programs, and many more from a hunger pandemic that may have been preventable), and the low likelihood that such responses are going to able to be maintained forever as a new normal. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/73 "2020-07-12T17:19:46Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > What’s your idea of the best plan The least poor is by default the best: > [@DSeid](#): > > Cautiously finding _the moving point_ that maximally reduces the damages of the interventions while controlling the intensity of disease within the population within some, to be determined, acceptable parameters, hoping for a vaccine but meanwhile trying to advance to a path forward that lives with the disease if that is what the future requires … is not a good plan. It is however _the least poor one_ . ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/74 "2020-07-12T17:21:51Z")
> **[Immunity to Covid-19 could be lost in months, UK study suggests](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/12/immunity-to-covid-19-could-be-lost-in-months-uk-study-suggests)** > > Exclusive: King’s College London team found steep drops in antibody levels three months after infection So much for herd immunity. Covid-19 may keep recurring like flu, and vaccines may only be effective for a few months. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/75 "2020-07-12T17:22:24Z")
It _is_ a bit amazing that the only person smart enough in the world, and talking this seriously enough posts on this message board. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/76 "2020-07-12T17:32:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The least poor is by default the best: That’s not a plan, that a loose collection of aspiration platitudes. No actionable ideas whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/77 "2020-07-12T18:10:52Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > [Immunity to Covid-19 could be lost in months, UK study suggests | Coronavirus | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/12/immunity-to-covid-19-could-be-lost-in-months-uk-study-suggests) > > So much for herd immunity. > > Covid-19 may keep recurring like flu, and vaccines may only be effective for a few months. The reality that specific antibody levels are not necessarily a good proxy of immunity, especially after infection, has been discussed before, (T-cells and so on) but let’s go with this for the sake of discussion. Yes, full immunity waning quickly would lead to COVID-19 recurring somewhat like influenza does, with some of the population immune each year and some not, and new mutations causing worse years, less severely with an effective vaccine annually developed and distributed, but like with influenza only to some degree of success. How would you propose to proceed forevermore in that scenario? > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > That’s not a plan, that a loose collection of aspiration platitudes. No actionable ideas whatsoever. I get that you do not comprehend. Let me break it down into the action items for your ease of digestion. 1. Determine the likely actual full spectrum of costs/consequences of different mitigation actions over their likely efficacy for spread reduction, to greatest degree the actual evidence allows. Rank them for most likely societal gain with least likely risk of exploding the hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. 2. From a point of a region having gotten defined metrics consistently stable to decreasing and below some to be determined non-zero threshold that does not threaten overwhelming systems have a plan that starts from the top and allows progression if various stay stable or decrease over three weeks. 3. Adjust as needed to in accordance with health systems capacities accepting higher rates of COVID-19 when there is no influenza present in order to decrease the risks of bigger overwhelming surges during influenza concurrence. 4. Have a sentinel surveillance system in place that can accurately give the metrics needed to determine if the gating criteria are being met or not and to get early warnings if not. 5. Determine the most effective and least harms causing ways to protect the most high risk populations. Each of these action points of course have many sub-points … ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/78 "2020-07-12T21:38:05Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The US federal system is arguably not ideal for pursuing a coordinated response, but no country was well equipped for this. And yet lots of countries, big and small, islands and bordered and landlocked countries, have managed to contain this. Countries much poorer than the US with far less medical resources have. > So I would push back against any implication that failure was inevitable here. Yeah, I agree that failure was not inevitable, and certainly failure on the scale we’ve seen was not inevitable. But it’s also worth pointing out that countries like New Zealand and Mongolia have a _much_ easier problem to solve, both epidemiologically and politically. Some of that is self-inflicted on our part. Honestly, if someone had told me a year ago that the Republican party would make wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic into a test of partisan loyalty I wouldn’t have believed them, yet here we are. But to have successfully done what Mongolia or New Zealand did would have meant basically shutting down most international air travel in early February and _convincing 50 different governors_ to take similar drastic response. That’s a pretty hard sell even with high levels of trust in government, a cohesive plan, and someone competent at the head. I just don’t see that happening. Everything after New York is just pure home-grown failure, but New York was probably semi-inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/79 "2020-07-13T06:54:27Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > But to have successfully done what Mongolia or New Zealand did would have meant basically shutting down most international air travel in early February and _convincing 50 different governors_ to take similar drastic response. That’s a pretty hard sell even with high levels of trust in government, a cohesive plan, and someone competent at the head. I just don’t see that happening. A better comparison might be somewhere like Germany. A federalist country, with a large population, strong international trade and in fact bordered by 9 other countries that have freedom of movement into Germany (so in some ways a tougher challenge). The death rate right now in Germany is about 1/4 of the US per capita, and is in steep decline while the US is still growing. I really believe that with good leadership the US could have been where Germany is. I mean even in a hypothetical where a Dem is in charge and then it _really_ becomes a political thing for people to go maskless in red states because “screw you, Obummer!”. A centrally coordinated response, ample resources given to fight the virus, focus on extensive testing (instead of downplaying it) and so on…I think most of the country would be under control, and the question would be whether one or two problem red states would cause a second wave. …Instead of the situation right now, of only select states apparently controlling the virus, and a first wave that didn’t end, it just got bigger. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654/80 "2020-07-13T16:50:16Z")
[More evidence that reinfection might be happening.](https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity) The author seems to come to the same conclusion as the OP of this thread: herd immunity isn’t going to be happening. The article seems anecdotal but it seems to me that a stronger case is being made for reinfection than previous reports of reinfection I’d seen (which I hadn’t found convincing at all). Ugh. What do Dopers think? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-the-concept-of-herd-immunity-a-bit-absurd/914654.md?page=5)