Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Have You Heard ?

I just listened to Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency – the nation’s top infectious disease official and architect of Sweden’s coronavirus response.

Sweden has taken an approach that is in contrast to almost every other country. They are using the common sense wearing of masks and handwashing, but not much more. Grade schools, high schools, and daycare never closed. Restaurants, bars, and shops have remained open. They have attempted to shelter those most vulnerable, and by Tegnell’s own admission that part of their countrywide plan has not worked very well, as one-third of the deaths in Sweden have been in nursing home patients. (To compare, about half of the coronavirus death in San Diego County have been in nursing home patients.)

At this time, the death rate in Sweden is higher than that of their neighboring Scandinavian neighbors, but this was not unforeseen because of Sweden’s gamble. Sweden is gambling that in the long run they will be better off by allowing some sort of herd immunity to develop among its Swedish citizens. For those not attuned to “herd immunity,” the concept is that if a certain percent of the population gets infected and thus gets antibodies to that same infection, those, who are still susceptible in the society, will then be “protected” by the herd. With an illness, like the coronavirus, in which one person will on the average spread the virus to 2.5 others, about 60% of the general populace needs to have antibodies( get infected) in order for “herd immunity” to be a significant player. In the long run the gamble is that less damage will be done by letting nature take its course early on. The gamble is that over the long run the death rate will be approximately the same or less and the economic ravages will be much less. Will the Swedish gambit payoff? . . . Too early to know!

To me the most interesting part of Anders Tegnell’s interview was his response to the question as to whether or not getting the coronavirus infection will then prevent one from getting it again? The questioner pushed on: “Do we know for sure if allowing all of the Swedish people to get the virus will for sure protect them from getting it again?”

To paraphrase, Tegnell’s answer basically was basically brilliant: “Do we know for sure? No. But if immunity to a subsequent infection as a result of the same prior infection follows the same pattern as has happened with other past viral infections, this is what will happen. However, if in fact getting the infection does not prevent one from getting that same infection again, then why are we . . . why is just about every nation in the world, trying to get a vaccine for this coronavirus. For you see if getting the virus does not prevent one from getting the same virus again, then . . . then a vaccine against this same coronavirus will be useless.”

Think about that logic for a bit! If one believes that a vaccine will be successful, then one must believe that herd immunity will also be successful.

However, by extension, if one does not believe that herd immunity will be successful, then one must believe that a vaccine will also not be successful.

If this is so, and one believes in latter, then “carpe-diem,” as we are all doomed!

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