Originally Posted by
Downtime
Some good points actually. That said MERS has a vaccine candidate but since as you noted SARS had a candidate but the funding dried up when it was eradicated. It seems they have worked out the kinks but you are right. The only problem with the herd immunity approach is we don’t know how long the immunity last. That said if we get a vaccine similar to flu that would be a huge win as it may stop infection but it does prime your immune system often preventing serious disease.
If herd immunity doesn't last then the immunity from a theoretical vaccine won't last either.
I don't think it's accurate to define immunity through antibodies only. Antibodies commonly fade with previous coronavirus strains, however T-cells are very important to immune system response and prevent re-infection of previous viral strains even when antibodies are no longer detectable.
Herd immunity will likely occur before a vaccine is successfully developed and distributed, whether or not we fight it. The question in my mind is, how much do we want to destroy and fight before we realize that nature is in control? How much denial is left?
If we assume the CDC iFR of 0.26% was correct in May (the most recent estimate) and 125,000 people have died from COVID-19, that means approximately 14% of Americans have already been infected and that is with a multi-month fairly broad lockdown and other mitigation measures. Personally, I don't believe those measures were particularly effective, in fact...I think they will be a failure. However, assuming they were effective and now stopped, if herd immunity requires 60-80% of the population to be infected it's possible herd immunity will be achieved by 2021.
We are at the end of June now, so it's possible 20% of the population has already been infected (current iFR of 0.2% with 130,000 deaths by the end of June). We could already be 1/3rd of the way there!
The iFR usually decreases with time, so assuming less and less people will die from the virus that are infected, and assuming the infections in the South continue...the cat is out of the bag.
The government is not in control and people will not tolerate another lockdown. The riots caused rebellion and apathy by the populace, all the government can do now is to appear it is in control and save face from it's failed policy.
The bigger question is the pervasive irrational hypochondria that now exists among Americans. As one who has had hypochondria in the past, I know it is extremely difficult to become more rational and objective when dealing with fears of mortality and disease. To me this is a bigger problem to get things back to normal than the virus itself. The media and politicians are making the problem much, much worse. The manipulation that is causing depression, anxiety and hysteria is a black mark on humanity, it frustrates me how gullible people are and how they are blind to their own irrationality and misery, much of it unneeded. I've been there, and being anxious about health issues is a destructive mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone.
The elderly, the morbidly obese and those with cardiac issues should be very careful. This virus is obviously extremely contagious, which makes me doubt mitigation measures like masks and hand washing are particularly effective.