How do vaccines work? They expose your body to a virus in a harmless way. Your body fills with rage at the invader and produces antibodies to kill it dead. If you ever encounter that virus again, well, your body knows how to deal with lowlifes like that. Whap! Smack! Pow! No more viral scumbags.
How do vaccinations work on a population when not all of the population receives them? The more people you inoculate, the harder it is for the virus to find new victims. It can't land on a person with antibodies, infect him, flourish and then leap onto someone else like a panther jumping down onto an unsuspecting diversity consultant taking an eco-tour in the jungles of Guatemala to learn how horribly sinful America is because of
I seem to have wandered off point. Anywho, it works because it eliminates lots of vectors for transmission. The more antibodyful people you have, the slower the virus spread becomes.
Now dig this.
That's data for a single county in the US, but all of the data from around the world looks the same. Regardless of underlying conditions, if you're under 50, you're fine. That means we already have a vaccine.
Vaccine: Let everyone under 50 do whatever they want. You want as many of them as possible to contract the disease and develop antibodies. The only trick is to keep them away from the vulnerable people while they're contagious. That's it. That's the only way out of this.
Watching Bad TV - Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! - the ads are full of "we must all obey our leaders and remain locked in our homes until this is over." It drives me batty. Staying in our homes is how to prolong this thing.
The only way out is through.
First, it is good to see you embrace the logic of that ‘plan’.
ReplyDeleteBut... really you only told half the plan. Those people with the conditions identified as significant co-morbidities also need to be excluded/protected. And if you do that then the age isn’t 50, it’s at least 55 or 60. Maybe even higher. About 3 or 4 days ago, on the news during their nightly ‘CoViD in San Diego county report’ they said that there were 190 deaths. Then they made what sounded like a throw-away comment, but should have been the lead. “Only three of those people were free from underlying health issues”.
So in SD county we’ve confirmed 5,523 cases (so the actual cases have to be more like 200,000 and all but certainly over 50,000) and have now seen 208 deaths (that’s probably something like 0.1% of actual cases). But it is only 3 deaths for people that are healthy (at worse that’s 0.06% and more likely somewhere below 0.002%). Healthy people deserve to be released as quickly as possible.
And before anyone think I’m stupid or callous... Yes, released but told to absolutely avoid anyone who is still self-isolating and continue wearing masks, keep a good distance, and wash your hands frequently.
Some of my best friends have serious co-morbidities.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the long-term plan for them? Wait for the vaccine? Only tested people with antibodies and no active virus can visit? They can only visit special stores and restaurants populated by the "safe?"
I think you have listed the options. There really isn’t any other obvious path for those folks (and I am one).
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting report on a possible treatment that would be a game changer, if it holds up past the press release stage.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/covid-cure-california-biopharmaceutical-coronavirus-antibody-breakthrough
KT - I realized late last night that neither of us actually mentioned what the ‘long term plan’ for the protected really is: herd immunity. I’m guessing that if the country follows the plan we’d get to something like 75% immunity in around a year. At that point the herd immunity is decent and everybody can go out with the basic protections. And yes, whenever antibody testing becomes widespread, when I find out my kids and grandkids are immune, I can go back to hugging them. It is a long wait, but it is worth it. And that’s worse case. A vaccine or a real treatment leads to a much shorter timeline.
ReplyDelete