Herd immunity as it is at the moment seemingly encouraged in the UK is not supported anywhere else, because as far as I know they are going with the 'let it spread as fast as it can'-route. From what I said before, I don't think I have to say again what I think about that... >:/
Germany is going the 'make it spread as slowly as we can make it'-route, but also emphasized it cannot be stopped.
The problem with lots of people invoking the "herd immunity" is that they make it seem like this is something that just comes from nothing in a matter of weeks. But there's some diseases where it takes generations and the first generation to contract any given disease is always hit hardest. We are that generation in the case of this disease, all of those that live today. So all we can do is make it go as mildly as we can by being as careful as we can and trying to give our healthcare as much time as we can, so as many people as possible can survive. And as many people as possible can survive without long term damages as well.
Then do us a favor and kill yourself rather than risk spreading the virus and taking that choice away from other people. Thanks.
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Except it's not an over-reaction. Yes there are consequences but being dead is worse than not being dead in almost all cases. It's not like anyone here is arguing that the government shouldn't step in an provide aid to those impacted financially. In fact, that's what they've done in the past with stimulus packages and will likely consider that an option as well.
That detail is why they consider doing this thing.
Believe it or not, it's not like you have a bunch of retard politicians deciding there only.
There are several viable paths:
- One is to wait for vaccine and hope to discover effective treatment for severe cases by then while trying to stall and slow the spread. The issue here is that in worst case scenario if no treatment is found in coming X months - the lockdown measures will ruin economies and livelihoods of many people. So it's sort of a gamble here.
- Another scenario with "herd immunity" is to spread this shit in a controlled fashion to not destroy healthcare system, but to immunize population relatively fast and ensure you get over this in specific time frame. The gamble here is the "controlled" part, as in everything goes as planned and of course it's more dangerous.
Neither option is ideal - both pessimistic cases are equally devastating. First option is safer but no estimate, while second option comes with estimates.
In perfect world medical-only approach, first option is the one to go for. But people also have other needs too.
Even then Berlin has more than twice the density of Riga, plus the shit has spread outside of capitals too, where you have cities of few thousand people at most.
As I said before, I am more woried about Russia. We are just a few million in Baltics, they have 145. It will not end nicely.
Probably lower then 100% per day, but certainly higher then 10%. Italy got 20,000+ cases in 5 weeks. They started with 2. You can't do that only doubling every week, you would have only 64 cases if it was only doubling once a week. On the other hand if it was doubling every day, they would have 35.18 Trillion cases, which is a fair bit more then the population of Italy.
So since the number of actual cases is somewhere between 64 and 35 Trillion, we can conclude it is spreading in between those two numbers. Probably 30-40% per day seems about right, since this is a very contagious disease, and it only takes rather brief contact to potentially infect someone else.
A few weeks? The global recession is already here. Just how staggering it is going to be awaits to be seen. Controlling the virus is absolutely important, and so is controlling fear and confidence. Either way, the worst of it has yet to come and will last for months and longer still each day businesses are interrupted. .
Anticipate that many people in the US will lose their jobs, their retirement savings, their access to healthcare if they have any to begin with. Its not just a mere inconvenience. If we are moving toward mandated quarantine and business closures then we need prepare for equally drastic steps who protect those people who are most vulnerable. Cash payouts to each American every month is a good start. Thankfully its an idea that's gaining some traction.
It's not black and white, things are being done.
Best lead so far is that various medicines that treat specific infections like Malaria seem to be at least somewhat effective against Corona as well. If a decent medicine is found, it will be possible to considerably reduce mortality and complications rates, after all - for vast majority of population this virus is not very dangerous, so if we can treat the relatively few severe cases - we're golden already.
Is kinda nice to see countries enforcing their borders again though... so silver lining?
They are not.
The more correct statement is that they are not going for maximum slow-down now, they are waiting with that until they it gets worse. We will be able to see if it worked at the end of year or a bit later, but they do have people in charge with experience - and the guts to largely follow that instead of just panicking.