Herd immunity

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So, in interest of saving the US economy, leaders and media are talking about herd immunity and getting young people back into the workforce. A quick search didn't show much info by medical professionals, let alone peer reviewed, on this topic. However the talk show host stated several times that he read several. Anyone have any good info? What's been talked about where you work? What does this mean for us? I'll be reading up more on this.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Herd immunity implies that a large enough group of people have immunity. Seeing as there is no vaccine, that would mean people would have had it to be immune. And I can’t believe that enough people have had this and become immune to even approach herd immunity levels.

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Oh, absolutely. (I'm sorry, I don't know what show I heard. I was taking care of my mom and my dad had the radio on. I also don't want to make this more of a political party debate than it needs to be based on his type of show)

So their theory, and this isn't out of the blue, UK considered it and apparently Sweden is trying it, is that younger people should be working and out getting the virus so that they will become immune and protect vulnerable people. Even though that needs to be 60% of the surviving population having immunity. Even though "some people" will get sick "barely sick or just like a flu" (I'm sure that's just that host's thought)

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Well, the listeners of these shows are posting their superior knowledge on facebook. Prepare to see more ignorant opinions than you can handle without a cocktail!

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8 hours ago, CampyCamp said:

Oh, absolutely. (I'm sorry, I don't know what show I heard. I was taking care of my mom and my dad had the radio on. I also don't want to make this more of a political party debate than it needs to be based on his type of show)

So their theory, and this isn't out of the blue, UK considered it and apparently Sweden is trying it, is that younger people should be working and out getting the virus so that they will become immune and protect vulnerable people. Even though that needs to be 60% of the surviving population having immunity. Even though "some people" will get sick "barely sick or just like a flu" (I'm sure that's just that host's thought)

I am retired, following this closely as well personal concerns being considered at risk. My understanding f is the vast majority have had or will have this in such a mild form they never know! In my area people now believe they had CO-19 but it was unknown. I believe Ameri is a is heading toward "herd immunity".

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Specializes in ICU,Tele,Interventional Radiology,PACU,Research.
23 hours ago, Rose_Queen said:

Herd immunity implies that a large enough group of people have immunity. Seeing as there is no vaccine, that would mean people would have had it to be immune. And I can’t believe that enough people have had this and become immune to even approach herd immunity levels.

The corona virus research is still in the early stages.Experts are not even sure those that have recovered have full immunity and there are talks might mutate to a different strain. Right now the only way we can fight as a human race is to #socialdistancing #stayhome #handwashing #weneedavaccinenow #PPEnotanoption.

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3 hours ago, waufah said:

The corona virus research is still in the early stages.Experts are not even sure those that have recovered have full immunity and there are talks might mutate to a different strain. Right now the only way we can fight as a human race is to #socialdistancing #stayhome #handwashing #weneedavaccinenow #PPEnotanoption.

I listened to an expert saying they felt it would not mutate again because it reached the high ability to spread.

I am not as pessimistic...I feel this will end sooner than later. But people do need to follow the recommendations.

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Well- being that 20% of hospitalized patients in the US are ages 20-40, this seems like an awful idea!

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Herd immunity will be really valuable - in a few months after thousands have had and recovered from COVID19 and we have a vaccine for others.

But just to send people back into the workforce right now is a terrible idea. If the idea is for them to contract it to develop herd immunity, that means they're becoming carriers in the meantime who will presumably come into contact with those in more vulnerable populations, and continue the spread. Not to mention the fact that we're seeing many young, otherwise healthy, people require hospitalization. Yes, we know that certain comorbidities increase the likelihood of a severe case, but we're also seeing people without risk factors falling seriously ill, and we don't know why.

If the idea is that we'd let those who have recovered back into the workforce, it presents other challenges. For one, we would have to KNOW who is immune and who isn't. Given that we don't have enough tests for healthcare workers and people who were hospitalized, we certainly don't have enough tests for people with mild symptoms at home to know if those people had COVID19 or some other illness. There was a recent NYT article talking about some Chinese COVID patients who tested positive, then negative, then positive again - raising the question of false negatives/positives vs. reinfection ability or asymptomatic carrier status. Antibody testing is another method, IF we had enough tests and knew they were accurate - and we're not there yet, either.

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