Is Herd Immunity Possible?

The short answer is no. Fauci warns that if the United States allowed coronavirus infections to run rampant to achieve possible herd immunity, the death toll would be massive, especially among high risk individuals. He said this: "If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms...a lot of people are going to die. You look at the United States of America, with our epidemic of obesity as it were. With the number of people with hypertension. With the number of people with diabetes. If everyone got infected, the death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable."

Herd immunity is reached when 70% to 90% of the population becomes immune to a disease either through a vaccine or recovery from having it. When this happens, the disease is less likely to spread to others who haven't had it because there aren't enough infectious carriers to reach them. While we still don't know whether those who have had coronavirus previously are immune now, some have suggested that allowing the virus to just infect large population might help herd immunity along - but would be a disaster for hospitals without enough materials to help everyone at once. Doctors would be overwhelmed and more people would die from not only COVID-19, but other infections.

Well that's happy Friday news. I took a moment yesterday to really think about the fact that I am living through a pandemic, but my brain refused to accept that and so I feel like I still haven't fully processed the magnitude of all of it. A year ago today I started junior year. The Snapchat memories are really awful now that I've realized I probably won't be going back until January at the earliest. The things I took for granted before seem very important now: being able to hug my friends, being able to simply be next to other people on the street or in the hallway, being able to eat inside restaurants.

We will be spending our next year breathing into a mask, but I just keep reminding myself it sure as hell beats the alternative.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/14/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html

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