We’re going to need a social signal for people who have developed immunity the hard way.
Someone needs to design a checkbox icon that is clearly visible at a distance, and make pin/buttons and stickers available.
“I survived coronavirus and all I got was herd immunity.”
I’ve thought of that, too. I’ve even thought of suggesting young, healthy people deliberately get infected with the virus, quarantine themselves for a few weeks or until they stop shedding, and then volunteer to help the ill or perform the jobs that can’t be done from home.
I’d even volunteer for that myself, if it was a good idea and my work would allow me.
Problem is that people have been getting re-infected. Apparently this is a thing with coronaviruses in general: they don’t produce a strong immune memory. That’s how they persist in populations, since they don’t undergo as much antigenic drift as flu and other viruses. Immunity is not necessarily immunity.
Source: TWiV interview with a coronavirus expert (http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/?fbclid=IwAR3QUs9dq5Ae9tTtmEi6nCpHppGYDEFbotwOhZevdJPWJwMwwt6vpEr3V2U)
@#1
Yeah, I have been thinking about this too. I can sit at home for two weeks. I cannot sit at home for several months. I’m worried that I might get sick, fail to notice it, and go out and spread the virus. For example, I need to go grocery shopping on a regular basis. It would really suck if I ended up infecting all the sellers in the farmer’s market with whom I exchanged money. If the virus is going to spread anyway, I’d prefer to get over with it sooner rather than later so that I can return back to not worrying about catching it. I mean, I don’t worry about myself that much, I am young and healthy. Instead I worry that I might unknowingly infect other people.
As mentioned, we don’t really know if infection with this thing confers permanent immunity. Two of the other endemic coronaviruses that are circulating give immunity for about a year, and that’s not really worth much. Compare to “flu season”, when some influenza virus goes on a holiday, and regardless which one it is, we need a new vaccine.
Today, I heard the coronavirus referred to as the “Boomer Remover.”
Please don’t think younger people are safe. From the NYT, Younger Adults Make Up Big Portion of Coronavirus Hospitalizations in U.S.:
Meh, let’s face it: noone in their right mind would ever trust something like that, even if it came laminated, notarised and with a royal seal. You already can’t rely on people, as illustrated daily by the often general and occasionally malicious stupidity shown by people across the globe.
Case in point: Some ejit in Germany apparently forced a childrens’ clinic to close after failing to mention they’d been in an at-risk area. They probably wanted to ensure decent care for their kid and screwed it up for a lot of other children. Understandable until it isn’t. This is one of those situations where special pleading – “Well, I’m fine!” – can do a lot of damage. It’s still tempting, though.
Re: consciousness razor
Great, another thing to add to the list of mistakes that boil down to shallow reading and/or media reporting. The tendency of older people being most severly affected does not equate to safety for everyone else. But looking at coverage these last few weeks, the vulnerabilities were often the main focus, making it easy for people who consider themselves healthy to shrug it off.
Maybe not really knowing how epidemics work is part of that. On that note, it might be interesting to see how the anti-vaxxers fare after this latest outbreak. Unlike previous epidemics, everyone will get to feel this one on some level or another. That should instill all of us with some healthy respect for disease and disease prevention.
Indeed. Also worth keeping in mind…. We’re quickly headed into a situation where the number of would-be patients drastically outnumbers our hospital beds. We will need to turn many people away, because there is literally nowhere for them to go. So, no matter which age group you belong in, your risk of dying or suffering severe (and perhaps long-term) health problems goes up, compared to the not-yet-apocalyptic situation we’ve already got now. There will be many people with only mild-to-moderate symptoms, fortunately. However, many others who would ordinarily have access to several weeks of treatment in a hospital (bad enough, but at least arguably better than death) will not even have that “luxury” anymore.