Sorry, where did you get that from? Herd immunity, conceptually, means that people that were exposed and are now immune can't contribute to transmission, as chains of infections are likely to get disrupted. As such, it only really depends on the fraction of the immune to the total population. You can arrive to that point either via vaccination (as we do for most childhood diseases, for example) or via natural exposure and subsequent recovery.
If we assume that we are achieving herd immunity via natural exposure, achieving it becomes a function of R0 combined with some rate of social interaction. Social distancing obviously reduces the transmission rates and delays herd immunity. For example, antibody tests from the NYC show it to be at 25% exposed population, while herd immunity requires somewhere around 60%. If the NYC did not impose a lockdown, we probably be at the herd immunity threshold already.
Roughly the same number of people will get infected with or without it (albeit slower) before the herd immunity is achieved. What lockdown and other social distancing measures do/did is slow the transmission enough to prevent the medical system from being overwhelmed. If you somehow can be sure of your medical resources, the approach taken by Sweden is pretty reasonable as it will bring them to herd immunity much faster.
Currently, there's no natural immunity, anywhere to Covid-19, although there
could be.
Sweden's own health officials stated we should have a vaccine within the next 1 - 2 years. Canada's health officials stated the exact same thing. WHO stated the exact same thing. United States health officials stated the exact same thing and France health officials stated the exact same thing.
Ok...now that 1 - 2 years was establish by people that know more about this than me.
Governments then put a rush on the development & research...to hopefully speed up the process of discovering a vaccine. They did the exact same thing with the HIV Pandemic. They panic, labs rush to the door...
wild wild west show.
Still no vaccine for the HIV Pandemic but they're working on it. Now back to Covid-19 and Sweden...Dr. Fauci back in early April stated we
could (not will) have a vaccine by spring or summer of next year 2021. That's in the realm of what everybody else is saying 1 - 2 years.
Typically, it takes 2 - 5 years to go through the discovery and research phase alone by itself. That's
not including the clinical phase to ensure that the vaccine is
safe.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/vaccine-development-barriers-coronavirus/
The above link has a graph (image posted further below) but its the only public one I can find. I have another graph more specific about Covid-19 involving the current research labs doing a rush...it shows 1 - 2 years for the discovery, research and clinical phase.
That's an enormous rush.
Then again, famous celebrities have stated they will volunteer to take the vaccine in the first clinical trials if it can rush it to vaccination of the public.
Another thread here at ET talks about such including using Prisoners whereas I stated many Universities that get big money from Pharmaceutical companies...those Universities pay their students big money to do clinical trials.
In the old days, they used the Military for clinical trials. My point, they have a large pool of Canaries for the clinical trials.
Anyways, that's were I got my typical 2 years but only if its rush. I strongly doubt any time less then 2 years will be possible. Yet, there's a rumour that China has developed a vaccine and currently in clinical trials...
- Won't hold my breath about such...its China.
By the way, not sure about the
60% stats for herd immunity in NYC as you stated.
- What's your source for 60% for herd immunity in NYC ?
Yet, Sweden's health officials stated 70 -80% is needed for herd immunity in Sweden but are very disappointed with the current antibodies level of only about 7% when they were expecting it to be much higher by July.
Personally, I don't trust testing for antibodies after natural exposure. Too much science that shows its most likely short-term or a weak response to a re-infection. In contrast, a gene response by a newborn is something I do believe in (more about that below).
Here's an interesting comparison about vaccines via the Measles.
Measles first case was like 1657 in Boston or somewhere in Massachusetts. Research wasn't started until the early 1800's after using so-called treatments that failed miserably. Yet, promising research started around 1875 about the time it hit the Indigenous communities.
It was so promising and they saw the killer impact it had on the Indigenous population...they slowed down the research to allow it to devastate the Native Americans. Cruel true story.
Early 1900s, Smallpox Pandemic hit...they now put a rush on the research again only because it was killing people with more rights than the Indigenous and their children.
With the best scientist...they came up with a vaccine for clinical trials in
1958. That's right...1958. It wasn't until early 1970's when they declared they had an approved vaccine (that means it doesn't kill people).
By early 1980's the Measles is almost eliminated from humans. Unfortunately,
anti-vaccine groups gain ground all over the world after several well documented cases of children dying
or becoming seriously ill after their vaccination shot for the Measles.
Since then, there's a huge part of the population that do not trust vaccines and we have a lot of ET members here stating they don't trust vaccines and prefer others to go before them as the
Canary in the Coal Mine.
Measles is on the rise again but only because of the low vaccinations around the world and people travelling from country to country much easier now...spreading it much easier.
With all that said, 2 years is a good guess even with a rush to a vaccine although the statistics show most likely not...more like
10 years if we're lucky. Can Sweden and the world develop a vaccine for
herd immunity in 70 - 80% of the population ?
- I strongly doubt such especially without a vaccine unless you're willing to achieve herd immunity after killing off millions of the population...similar to the plague eventual immunity. Seriously, nobody is going to try to kill off a large percentage of its population to achieve herd immunity via natural exposure. They prefer the vaccine route to speed up the process.
They say it was natural selection (better genes) and better diets that saved those remaining in the infected area of Europe...it allowed eventual herd immunity. I won't mention how long that took...discouraging time duration. Yet, it still killed 75 million - 200 million Europeans.
In college, there's many medical journals about the Plague in comparison to modern diseases. Diseases that take many many years to write itself into the genes / genomes of the next generation. At birth...we're born immune to many diseases including to the Plague.
By the way, I don't like mentioning the history of the Plague with a discussion about Covid-19 but I'm mentioning it because I think our descendent...children of women with antibodies for Covid-19...these children will be born immune to Covid-19 just like it had happen with the Plague. Yet, we won't know until next year if such is true
or not.
Tests in the genome of the descendants of the Plague show those descendants having the genes to fight the Plague successfully...
at birth.
Here's another interesting statistic variable...about 20 - 25% of Sweden's population are anti-vaccine. They don't believe in it. Sweden needs to fix that if they want herd immunity to develop after a vaccine has been found. Only way they can do that is to take away their citizens rights and force vaccination on their fellow Swedes...
It will never happen.
Maybe better education about the importance of vaccine will work ?
wrbtrader
Crazy levels of fear!!
