About 20% of Americans get the flu each year. Yet we are told that epidemics last until Herd Immunity is obtained, which is at least 60-70% of the population having the disease. Why the difference?
Well, I think the obvious answer is that healthy immune systems are the de facto equivalent of vaccines. I think that if you were to randomly test people on the street during flu season the way that they are testing people for COVID-19, you would find “positive” tests for antibodies in a hundred million people or more each flu season, if you could do that much testing.
Here is the thing: immunity from a given virus lasts a month or two. This is why they are not finding antibodies in the blood of people they know have had it, when they test more than two months later.
We don’t build permanent immunity to the cold viruses. We don’t build permanent immunity to flu viruses. And there is now every reason to think we don’t build permanent immunity to COVID-19. China has bequeathed a permanent gift to the world.
This means that any vaccines will last a couple months, no more, much like the flu vaccine.
Here is the second thing: given that Herd Immunity is the only way to make this thing stop–at least for that season–and given that it depends on an immunity which only lasts a couple months, the FASTER THE VIRUS TRAVELS THE BETTER, particularly if we can keep it out of the most vulnerable populations.
2020 is the first time in human history where the world has been shut down for a pandemic. They didn’t do that even in 1918. They certainly didn’t do that for the Hong Kong flu in the late 60’s. Always what we have done is simply hand wash more, go out less, worry a bit more about getting the disease, which no doubt led even back then to some version of social distancing, and let the thing run. When it was done, it left.
Here is my concern with the current response: over and above the economic and emotional damage being done, if you slow this thing down too much, you increase by a LOT the risk of people being exposed to this disease multiple times without their initial immunity. If they are exposed once, then exposed again three months later, they are not in a better place the second time by much, if at all.
I really continue to think we need to tear the bandaid off. Let this thing run among the Under 55. The CDC needs to develop a list of the things that seem to improve immunity, things like Vitamins C, D, and K. Oregano Oil maybe. Fish oil for inflammation. Saunas. Sunlight. Exercise. Healthy weight. Stress reduction. Various herbs that may help. Zinc supplementation. Fermented vegetables.
All those things help with everything, from common colds to cancer, so they are good policy anyway. We should have been seeing that sort of thing from the get-go, since there is no downside, and every possible upside.
But I really, really think the chosen response is going to cause more death in the long run. If saving lives is the goal, the needed policy is clear. We need to give all businesses the choice to open up in any way they see fit. If some stores choose to continue to require masks, that is their choice. If businesses want to require masks, that is their choice. But the global mandates, and in particular the mandated work stoppages, need to end.
I really think history–very near future history–will be unkind to the people pushing the harshest lockdowns. They are far beyond unnecessary: they are counterproductive. You get worse outcomes, while generating all sorts of collateral damage that was completely unnecessary.