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| Science & Technology |
| Stop Trying To Make ‘Herd Immunity' Happen: Sweden's Attempt At Covid-19 Herd Immunity Failed |
| 2020-08-13 |
| [Forbes] - While most countries went into lockdown as Covid-19 spread rapidly across the world, Sweden took a different approach and allowed the controlled spread of coronavirus among the population in attempts to achieve herd immunity. They relied on individuals to responsibly social distance and slow the spread of the disease, but, according to a new study published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076820945282, this decision has been a failure.
Herd immunity is when enough people are immune to a disease, like Covid-19, that the disease can’t be transmitted as easily and thus provides indirect protection It can be achieved either through vaccination or if enough people catch the disease and develop immunity. Health authorities predicted that 40% of the Stockholm population would have had the disease and acquired antibodies by May 2020. According to the study, the actual prevalence figure is only around 15%. And, as we know today, there may not be acquired immunity to Covid 19. ...Many experts point out, it’s still too early to tell which pandemic strategy will be best in the long-term. The authors note it likely won’t be until as many as two years after the pandemic that we will be able to objectively say which method was most effective. But new evidence continues to emerge that herd immunity may be more difficult to achieve than thought. For example, clinical and research findings suggest, only severely infected Covid-19 patients acquire antibodies in the immediate and early recovery phase of their illness. Early research has shown that immunity, even in those who were severely infected, can fade after a few weeks and there have been anecdotal examples of reinfection, but more research needs to be done. Given the numbers of research groups* that look for immune memory (acquired immunity to Covid 19), if there were such - we'd seen reports** by now. *Real researchers, not people like Ioannidis or Scott Atlas. ** Since Covid 19 research can be pre-published without pear review. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #36 Swedes, nuff said. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2020-08-13 22:48 |
| #35 Why, even you, and especially you, can be part of the Masquerade! Or mask parade? Take it from no greater authority than Tom Hanks, who has just done his tiktok lecture shame for the safety dance - stay home, wear a mask, don't go to church, whatever. You know, this shit tit who have been jet setting around for the last 8 months, with a current jaunt to Beautiful Greece. On that note, radio commercial pissed me off. Big Insurance making cute commercials quips. Sound fades in, busy noise, hear a lady call for so-and-so, party of whatever. Obviously, it is a restaurant so busy there is a wait. Its noise, people talking, glasses clanking, busy place not a fast food joint. The joke: "Big Insurance brings you, sounds from the past." Fug that. Sounds of the past? Not, sounds of the future. Wisconsin Government, you must voluntarily comply to wear a mask while teleconferencing? Or else? Lame and stupid at the same time. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-08-13 17:15 |
| #34 If a point is belabored long enough and often enough, it loses its edge and becomes a blunt finger poking others in the chest. The point and its deliverer become pointless. An irritant for irritation's sake. |
| Posted by: JHH 2020-08-13 16:41 |
| #33 Nice of Grom to agree that lockdown didnt do any good. ???????????????? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 15:11 |
| #32 Nice of Grom to agree that lockdown didnt do any good. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-13 14:32 |
| #31 Must have a lot of blacks in Sweden then. Aren't black Americans "disproportionately" affected with COVID-19? |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-08-13 14:17 |
| #30 I'll bet good money that Sweden like the UK has at least 5 times the number of normal Flu deaths than Covid deaths. PLUS I'll bet that it continues that the average age at death of a Covid case is higher than average life expectancy. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-08-13 14:09 |
| #29 #26 - 28 (a) We will have a vaccine in a few years (the necessary understanding of immunological theory already exists). (b) Till then, we have passive vaccines - the article I posted here a few days ago. Until then, you'll have to wear a mask when going into public places - like wearing a condom when you engage in extra pair copulation. Or wearing a seat belt when you drive. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 13:20 |
| #28 And I can't wait to see the vaccine "requirement" contain an enormous exception for muzz. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-08-13 12:57 |
| #27 At this point I don't see how you can have draconian rules around COVID - "because, the deaths!" and not also: Outlaw tobacco and alcohol. Install draconian sanctions on obese people. Outlaw driving / riding anything you can fall from and sustain a fatal head injury. Strenuous sports. Flying, commercially or otherwise. Etc. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-08-13 12:53 |
| #26 If immunity fades after a few months, and vaccines are unlikely to be very effective, and herd immunity is not possible, then what's the point of the restrictions? Those who will die will die, but after a year or two in isolation and accompanied by millions of others killed by depression effects and economic implosion. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-08-13 12:39 |
| #25 Scientists Uncover Evidence That a Level of Pre-Existing COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Is Present in the General Population Fat lot of good did it do to the 750,000 covid dead (as of today). |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 12:09 |
| #24 Is that suggesting that continuous exposure, rather than isolation, is the more effective move? Perhaps an active immune system and a good attitude is akin to lifting weights and running before playing the football season? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-08-13 11:50 |
| #23 Disenchanted readers may request a prorated reimbursement of their subscription fee from the Rantburg store. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-08-13 11:47 |
| #22 Early research has shown that immunity, even in those who were severely infected, can fade after a few weeks and there have been anecdotal examples of reinfection, but more research needs to be done. How early? I thought I recalled something about impacts of exposure to the SARS virus (now SARS-1 because COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-2 virus) so I looked, and here is something about a small scale study (each leg <50) published in Nature a month ago: Scientists Uncover Evidence That a Level of Pre-Existing COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Is Present in the General Population [scitechdaily] Singapore scientists uncover SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in recovered COVID-19 and SARS patients, and in uninfected individuals. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-08-13 11:43 |
| #21 ^120+ |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 11:21 |
| #20 Going back to school in these parts. For math sake, rounding numbers, so say population Kansas is 3,000,000. 32,000 confirmed cases over 6 months. No data on how many tests performed, or a false-positive rate. 800 deaths chalked up to China Flu. No data on how many of them were compromised health wise. People are not in nursing homes on their own accord. That is a 1% got infected rate. Of those who tested positive, there was a 2.5% attributed mortality rate. Finding the percentage of lost population puts the handy calculator into scientific notation. Living wise, we are opposite of the NYC butthole lickers; free range if you will, but not as much as our neighbors to the south, Oklahoma. So I ask again, how much more time do the models need so the data fits? My short answer is one week, when the media makes every single kid who shows up at school and measures a higher than normal temperature gets considered a COVID casualty and the teacher union howls about possible mass casualty events. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-08-13 11:20 |
| #19 #17 Not true. Compare Sweden, and say Denmark on worldometer. The reason you think Sweden finished because at their max they had 102+ deaths per day and now they have 1 or 2 (so you can't see it without placing the arrow). Whereas Danes' max was 20+ and now they've 1 or 2. So they have the same death rates today. However, 621 Danes died in total vs. 5,770 Swedes. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 11:20 |
| #18 Does percentages of immigrants in Sweden versus neighbors correlate at all to infection rates? Norway 16.8% of population (2017) Sweden 24.1% of population (2017) Finland 7.3% of population (2018) Iceland 14.1% of population (2019) Also where those immigrants are from may make a difference (immigrants from other nordic countries would likely have similar living habits to the locals). Just throwing the idea out there. I don't really know if 24% vs 16.8% is much of a big deal when it comes to transmission rates in a city or not bu tit sounds like it should be. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-08-13 11:08 |
| #17 Data stops in June. As of today the rest of Scandinavia is still getting more cases and deaths, while Sweden is pretty much done. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2020-08-13 10:39 |
| #16 Sweden was the socialist promised land to the media for a long time. For all the wrong reasons. And now it's a shining city on the hill for anti-socialists --- again for all the wrong reasons. p.s. Anybody noticed that lock-downs in USA ended months ago? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 10:17 |
| #15 The authors note it likely won’t be until as many as two years after the pandemic that we will be able to objectively say which method was most effective. If a person jumps from a tall building, do we have to wait for a splat on a sidewalk? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 10:14 |
| #14 #12 That's what I asked yesterday: "Why Sweden, why not Brazil?". |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 10:12 |
| #13 |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-08-13 10:06 |
| #12 since 1 August, Sweden is averaging only about 2 covid deaths per day but really given all the issues with different population demographics, different treatment regimes, different protocols on case diagnosis and cause of death, etc. it really is way early to make these kinds of calls |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-08-13 10:02 |
| #11 |
| Posted by: Ebbinetle Elmaving6836 2020-08-13 10:00 |
| #10 Sweden was the socialist promised land to the media for a long time. The journo crowd is bitter and disappointed they are tarnishing that halo now. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-08-13 09:35 |
| #9 Imagine my surprise when I saw the headline and then correctly guessed who posted it. |
| Posted by: Raj 2020-08-13 09:13 |
| #8 The authors note it likely won’t be until as many as two years after the pandemic that we will be able to objectively say which method was most effective. So what was the purpose of the article, again? Point fingers? Shame Sweden? It is likely that some of this inter-Scandinavian difference in mortality outcomes might have also have arisen from a failure to shield the most vulnerable Swedes from viral infections (40%–50% of their cases have been in the elderly nursing home resident population). So maybe the moral of the story is to protect the elderly and vulnerable? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-08-13 09:08 |
| #7 |
| Posted by: Thimp Clusort2035 2020-08-13 07:58 |
| #6 |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 07:26 |
| #5 Amazing that the bashing of Sweden by the MSM for not toeing the line continues. Like wearing masks and quarantining has been such a success story. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-08-13 07:18 |
| #4 /\ Please post newsworthy comments which are neither pejorative or dismissive of others. I know you are fully capable, I've seen numerous examples. Please help us out if you would. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-08-13 07:17 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-08-13 07:11 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-08-13 07:06 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-08-13 06:17 |