[tilolebo]

It's not a pause button, it's a playback speed button that slows down the contamination.

Remember #FlattenTheCurve.

What is true is that it would take waaaay longer to reach herd immunity this way.

Another thing that people usually get wrong is the her immunity concept: from what I understand, it doesn't mean we ALL need to be infected. We just need to be enough, so the virus can't spread anymore.

[tigershark]

At that R0 herd immunity will be probably achieved when at least 70% of the population is infected. So it’s not all, but we are still speaking of about 5.5 billion people globally...

[roenxi]

Alas, if you do some order of magnitude calculations you might find that that'll take a very long time.

[novaRom]

And if immunity lasts 6 to 24 months as this author suggests, there might well be no chance for a herd immunity.

[foobarbecue]

Herd immunity doesn't happen until you have a vaccine.

[yoz-y]

Or until something like 95% of population has been infected and we know for sure that those who already had the disease can not spread it anymore.

[oezi]

Statistically a disease reaches herd immunity if everyone except 1 / R0 are infected.

For a disease with R0 of 3 (such as covid) this would be 66%. To explain: If two out of three are immune then a disease which usually infects three people will run out of steam.

[foobarbecue]

Has this ever happened in humans? I haven't been able to find an example.

[jimktrains2]

Isn't this why there is a 1918-related flu outbreak every generation and why bubonic plauge used to recurved every generation because there aren't immune?

[nicoburns]

I think bubonic plague is bacterial, and was solved with antibiotics.

[jimktrains2]

It doesn't matter that it's bacterial to have recurrences.

Also, we never "solved" the plauge, but it died down a lot before antibiotics were even a thing.

[tzs]

What about people born after that point? As immune people die over time from other causes, and as people are born without immunity, the percent of the population with immunity from having had it falls.

Non-vaccine acquired herd immunity is temporary.

[TuringNYC]

I think the idea is that once there is herd immunity, the virus has no way to propagate and ends up disappearing w/o vectors. However, that would require global immunity.

[yoz-y]

You are right, I haven't thought about that.

[akiselev]

The whole idea of herd immunity in this context is fucking nonsense. No self-respecting epidemiologist would even bring it up this early into a pandemic.

Herd immunity is the last resort for the immunocompromised or unvaccinated, not the foundation for public health policy.

[CathedralBorrow]

When would bringing up the topic be acceptable for you?

[rhn_mk1]

Not sure who says it's last resort. There's a paper linked in a sibling comment about herd immunity's role in smallpox eradication.

[monocasa]

They had a vaccine that let them not actually infect everyone with full blown smallpox to get to herd immunity.