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This herd immunity quote highlighted by @danwootton is hilariously flawed. Why? Because each year there are >700K live births in the UK. Herd immunity proponents forget a simple fact - the herd isn’t static over time. /1 https://twitter.com/danwootton/status/1317745590286098435
New births and young children form a reservoir for viral transmission. Unless we indefinitely shut away the >20% of the population who are elderly or at higher risk of death, keep kids from their grandparents, the virus will happily transmit from low risk to high risk groups /2
This is so barn door frigging obvious it is unbelievable that it needs to be pointed out, really. With the exception of possibly a handful of viruses (eg Zika), there has been no sustained herd immunity of any epidemic without vaccination /3 (see https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772167?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=content-shareicons&utm_content=article_engagement&utm_medium=social&utm_term=102020#.X44DQttqsQs.twitter)
This means that the UK and other countries with unfortunately inadequate pandemic responses, will continue to require restrictions for large chunks for the population indefinitely, putting pressure on their hospitals, as shielding is always incomplete, until a vaccine arrives /4
“Moreover, so far, there is no example of a large-scale successful intentional infection-based herd immunity strategy.”
AND analysis from the IMF economists showed that if virus transmission is high, a voluntary lockdown effect occurs regardless /5 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2020/09/30/world-economic-outlook-october-2020
AND analysis from the IMF economists showed that if virus transmission is high, a voluntary lockdown effect occurs regardless /5 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2020/09/30/world-economic-outlook-october-2020
This graph is from the IMD Report Chapter 2. It shows how voluntary social distancing in advanced economies mimics a mandatory lockdown if there is community virus transmission. /6
Even if you tell supposedly low risk people to go out and catch the virus - many won’t. Because they want to protect themselves (eg from Long Covid-19, ~10-15% of 18-49 year olds) and their vulnerable loved ones. /7
In the meantime, with no vaccination, Ardern and her government have prevented many deaths, much long COVID-19, and hospital overwhelm. We have had ONE national lockdown, and one further regional lockdown which lasted 3 weeks at level 3 while the UK follows the “rule of 6” /8
Overseas, we see that mortality of COVID-19 patients has fallen significantly, thought in part to be due to improved treatments and management - clinicians are learning to manage this disease better, and NZ will benefit from this with or without a vaccine /9
We are also learning from the responses of other countries - what successful countries are doing and, sadly, what not to do from countries whose responses have been inadequate and costly. Our strategy has - even without a vaccine - allowed us to be smarter and learn /10
Overseas, there are ongoing research trials testing treatments. We follow the large number of vaccines in phase 3 trials w interest, knowing we won’t be rushed to accept unsafe vaccines because our country is at the brink /11
We have partially opened our borders to valuable essential workers, and slowly finding capacity to allow long term students back. Our strategy has given us choices - people seem to want to come here. /12
So please don’t bash New Zealand because your government mucked this up royally and you want to make it sound like the kid who tops the OECD class is actually in the wrong - that’s rubbish. We are not bashing you, in fact, we want you to succeed, we don’t want harm for you /13
What we have here in NZ - a government that listened to science, innovated a COVID-19 four level alert strategy overnight, whose public communication has been exemplary, and who’ve been re-elected w a historic 1 in 50 year majority - we wish that for you too. Kia kaha, take care
