Immunity doesn't last forever so if we have only got 5% immunity after 2.5-3 months then would we get close to herd immunity before people start becoming un-immune? Could end up just getting stuck on, say, 30% immunity until a vaccine turns up, with vulnerable people having to sit out until that vaccine appears.

Originally Posted by: JHutch 

Professor Gupta is back. Tim Martin will be delighted with this intervention I expect!

Pubs and restaurants could reopen now without risking public health, says Oxford scientist

Professor Sunetra Gupta says coronavirus epidemic 'on way out' and urges rapid exit from UK lockdown

Pubs and restaurants could reopen tomorrow without posing the threat of a second wave of coronavirus, a leading Oxford scientist has suggested.

Sunetra Gupta, a professor of Theoretical Epidemiology, said there was a "strong possibility" that the hospitality industry could get back to work without posing a danger to the public.

In an interview, Prof Gupta called for a "rapid exit" from lockdown and said the coronavirus epidemic was already "on the way out". Much of the UK population may already have been exposed to the virus before the Government ordered people to stay at home, she added.

In March, Prof Gupta and her team published a controversial study claiming coronavirus had been spreading for months, with up to half the UK population already exposed.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/21/pubs-restaurants-could-reopen-now-without-risking-public-health/

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

The longevity of immunity is an unknown but I've read and heard suggestions that it should last at least a year and perhaps longer.  The wider concern is the implication for any vaccination programme if immunity is relatively short-lived: having to vaccinate 6-7 billion people possibly every 2 years would be both a massive exercise and a signicant cost to the global healthcare budget.

Even 30% of the population being immune means around 20m cases, a 200k-400k death toll and a severe strain on hospitals. Think of London's experience and double it.

I don't think it's fair or even possible to expect all vulnerable people to remain cocooned for another year or more.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Immunity doesn't last forever so if we have only got 5% immunity after 2.5-3 months then would we get close to herd immunity before people start becoming un-immune? Could end up just getting stuck on, say, 30% immunity until a vaccine turns up, with vulnerable people having to sit out until that vaccine appears.

Originally Posted by: JHutch 

Truth and scrutiny don't matter anymore. A load of bullcrap gets pasted around and swallowed by those who want to believe it. Jesus f...king Christ.

Originally Posted by: NickR 

The longevity of immunity is an unknown but I've read and heard suggestions that it should last at least a year and perhaps longer.  The wider concern is the implication for any vaccination programme if immunity is relatively short-lived: having to vaccinate 6-7 billion people possibly every 2 years would be both a massive exercise and a signicant cost to the global healthcare budget.

Even 30% of the population being immune means around 20m cases, a 200k-400k death toll and a severe strain on hospitals. Think of London's experience and double it.

I don't think it's fair or even possible to expect all vulnerable people to remain cocooned for another year or more.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

And here's another sobering thought. What if you survive the first attack but succumb through catching it a second time due to the damage the first dose did? 

Originally Posted by: CreweCold 

A real epidemic kills off up to half the population like the Black Death.

This disease has been ramped up a bizarre extent when such a small percentage might be affected.
The only 'cure' of ever extending 'three week' lockdowns - as a form of self flagellation - causing economic Armageddon is looking ever more ridiculous.
It is going to cause far more deaths than the virus if it could be ended now, but it will take years to put right the damage already done.

Originally Posted by: four 

Things to consider:

*Natural immunity - Some even have natural immunity to HIV 

*Not everybody will catch it.. can you imagine the yearly death tolls in this country alone if 'everybody' caught the flu? Even with flu jabs and anti viral's. I think it was 2017 when this country saw an excess of 50,000 deaths over a couple of months because of the flu. The flu jab for that year was for a potent strain originating in Australia and what ended up happening was the regular flu killed tens of thousands because they hadn't been given the jab for it. 

*We simply have no idea just how widespread within the general population the corona virus is... What if 50% has already had it? It is plausible due to the limited amount of testing that has been done in past months. Its all fine and dandy now testing 100k a day when the peak has long passed but until 100k anti body test are being done a day we won't now the true scale. But lets go with the hypothetical idea half the population has had then the current death toll is no worse then the flu. It certainly wouldn't justify the lock down. 

Originally Posted by: picturesareme 

There's still too little known to make anything like this statement.
The views of  Sunetra Gupta, a professor of Theoretical Epidemiology are based on far more knowledge than anyone here - except there are "those who don't want to believe it"
Half the population has been effectively brainwashed by 10 weeks of wall to wall gloom and doom and are unable to concede that the 500,000 deaths scenario was completely off the wall

A real epidemic kills off up to half the population like the Black Death.
This disease has been ramped up a bizarre extent when such a small percentage might be affected.
The only 'cure' of ever extending 'three week' lockdowns - as a form of self flagellation - causing economic Armageddon is looking ever more ridiculous.
It is going to cause far more deaths than the virus if it could be ended now, but it will take years to put right the damage already done.

Originally Posted by: four 

The longevity of immunity is an unknown but I've read and heard suggestions that it should last at least a year and perhaps longer.  The wider concern is the implication for any vaccination programme if immunity is relatively short-lived: having to vaccinate 6-7 billion people possibly every 2 years would be both a massive exercise and a signicant cost to the global healthcare budget.

Even 30% of the population being immune means around 20m cases, a 200k-400k death toll and a severe strain on hospitals. Think of London's experience and double it.

I don't think it's fair or even possible to expect all vulnerable people to remain cocooned for another year or more.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

1. I have never seen any suggestion of ‘natural immunity’ to HIV. Do you have any link(s)?  Given it’s another novel virus that jumped from animals around 50 years ago it would be unlikely.


2. SARS-Cov2 is a novel virus to which there is no immunity in humans. On what basis, other than chance, would anyone not catch it?


3. We have good estimates of the spread within the population. 50% is just pie in the sky. So let’s not go with your wild, unsubstantiated guess. Remember that the seasonal flu hospitalisation and death figures would be much worse without the vaccination programme.

I find the seemingly complacent attitude very difficult to reconcile with the evidence; in fact your position is at odds with that evidence.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

The reason the plague killed half the population was because they had no proper medicine back then. They were still using leaches. And of course, most lower class people were already in a poor state of health to begin with

I have sympathy with your economic argument and I think any lockdown cannot last beyond 8 weeks. But unlike other countries, we haven't got our rate low enough. So just like America, we will have to accept a high daily death count until either herd immunity is reached or a vaccine is ready

Originally Posted by: The Beast from the East