I knew it. I just knew it. This article explains a point that I have seen made in brief comments by other experts. The author is a medical scholar at an Ivy League institution. The author recommends only requiring isolation for the elderly and the medically ill, and warns that if we continue with blanket social-distancing measures, we could see another major outbreak because we are not allowing our population to develop herd immunity. Here is an excerpt from the article:
"The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles). . . .
"In the meantime, we are being told to quarantine as much as possible so the medical system can deal with the many people who become infected. Simple, right? Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than this.
"What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die, even if we were to maintain the quarantine indefinitely. Why is this the case?
"The reason is that only young and healthy people contribute to herd immunity. Elderly and medically ill people generally do not contribute to herd immunity because their immune systems are not strong enough to develop an immune response."
"The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles). . . .
"In the meantime, we are being told to quarantine as much as possible so the medical system can deal with the many people who become infected. Simple, right? Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than this.
"What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die, even if we were to maintain the quarantine indefinitely. Why is this the case?
"The reason is that only young and healthy people contribute to herd immunity. Elderly and medically ill people generally do not contribute to herd immunity because their immune systems are not strong enough to develop an immune response."
Why Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths
What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more high-risk people will die.
thefederalist.com