Herd immunity. The Mayo Clinic setting out the basic scientific reasons this should never work, for Covid.…

Herd immunity. The Mayo Clinic setting out the basic scientific reasons this should never work, for Covid. And yet it’s the global strategy, copied from the Great Barrington Declaration, a free market economic think tank. Let’s check with Bob. /1 https://t.co/aWouOwP9uO https://t.co/vZ4un0sMER

Bob’s regular updates on the Covid situation in the UK and globally are very thorough. This latest one could make you wonder if herd immunity is actually working. Describing low or even very low levels of Covid activity, in many places, globally. /2 https://t.co/Gaw1lTokFF

Of course with an epidemic disease, you will have troughs as well as peaks, so that in itself tells you nothing about herd immunity. But Bob shows that often those peaks seem to be getting lower over time, with the data we have. So how do we understand that? /3

Many have pointed out that the underlying baseline level of infection has risen and remains at elevated levels, so that what we’re seeing is more like tidal ebbs and surges, rather than waves. This isn’t my area of expertise, but every day I want to ask these questions. /4

The basic science on population immunity, as expressed by the Mayo Clinic, tells us it is simply impossible to ever achieve this aim, with this virus. Many experts have been saying this ever since ‘living with’ Covid was proposed. /5 https://t.co/dkrAF0qwqb

Are we in fact seeing fewer infections in the peaks, over time, as Bob’s report suggests? Or is something being missed here? And if we are, how could that even be possible, with the nature of this virus, that seems completely non-amenable to a herd immunity approach? /6

Is it just that you will expect very large peaks in the beginning, with novel exposure to a new virus, and those peaks will then become lower due to temporary immunity from infections and vaccinations? But endless epidemic peaks will continue? /7

These are genuine questions from me, again a non-expert in this field. An interested member of the public whose life has to be negotiated with some sort of answer to these essential questions. @CrabbBrendan, @Globalbiosec, or any others who have this expertise? /end

@AmandaKvalsvig interested in your thoughts here?