lol you've never heard of a virus mutating? it's a matter of how long it takes to mutate, and then whether or not herd immunity is effective against that mutation rate. like, hmmmm, idk, let me think, literally all colds and flus have for literally ever.

did u stop learning biology when you got chicken pox at age 8 or something?

you silly science deniers leaned so heavily on herd immunity as a defense against shut downs, then you admitted later that a laissez faire approach would have been really bad, now you're back to herd immunity? full circle lack of logic tbh lol. we havent even shown herd immunity to be effective, let alone mutation proof.

yeah that is the main issue with herd immunity, I think it's literally a "no fucks given" approach at this point

early on when it looked like a contagious disease that only killed elders, herd immunity was a half cocked but somewhat work-able idea. provided that elderly people would be strictly sheltered in place to avoid the catastrophic spreading phase. but of course there would never have been plans to help out and shelter the elderly, and spread to nursing home enviroments was always inevitable. but when we had almost no info the idea that we could herd up before the 2nd wave was somewhat feasible.

today, given what we know about comorbidity, spread, and mutation, it's a reckless and stupid idea. ok to say it in a edgelord "just let everyone die" way, but to say others dont understand biology while ignoring we get different strains of colds and flus every year is just embarrassing. post like these are why endless has been mocked for years and everyone doubted his supposed educational accolades.

If it is like the cold then it is endemic and will never be stopped. Shutting down for an unstoppable virus is like trying communism again.

shutting down allows us time to study the disease, better come up with ideas for the elderly to mitigate their risk, put less strain on the healthcare system, work on a vaccine, and generally figure out what is going on.

it's funny that you jump from unfounded position to unfounded position without getting whiplash. early on you were all herd immunity, then swallowed that position whole, then viruses dont change, now they do but we can't do anything, next ill tell you flu vaccines exist, who knows where u go from there lol. but hey, that'll show those libs.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jul 14 2020 11:32am

Vaccines for the flu have only increased the yearly death rate from the flu over the past ten years, and not from reasons you would immediately expect.

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Jul 14 2020 11:39am

so covid can't be stopped, but also we're going a bad job of stopping it compared to countries where they've had far less deaths per million? ok.

It really depends on how quickly the virus mutates...here are some examples: HIV, common cold, influenza. Based on what I've read, it's possible to be reinfected but the T cells come in and save the day. Maybe Thor can elaborate on this since this is well beyond my expertise, but in order for T cells to be activated, you need to already be infected.

He said that in March for a number of reasons, one of which was that we simply didn't have enough equipment at the time. It's no longer March though, it's July. Americans are just fucking stupid and they collectively are going to ruin the economy for the 2nd time. Europe seems to have beaten it, whereas we didn't. Thanks Obama.

Coronaviruses tend to be more stable than influenza viruses. Mutation is a potential problem, but it's unlikely that a future covid vaccine would be a total crapshoot year to year the way influenza vaccines are.
The fact that antibody levels of former covid patients seem to be dropping off relatively quickly, after 3 months or so, does not mean that a vaccine is impossible or would have to be refreshed every 3 months. There are other ways the body could "remember" an immune response than antibodies, for example via T-cells.

And last but not least, it has to be expected that natural selection causes the virus to become less deadly over time, to the point where it really is just another flu. The same happened with the Spanish Flu btw.

So tldr: it's mostly about getting over this summer and the upcoming winter. Sometime next year, first vaccines can be expected, and it's not unlikely that additional, more effective treatments will be discovered or developed. We will not be social distancing and wearing masks for the rest of our lives.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 14 2020 12:00pm

Right and it seems abundantly clear that waiting for a vaccine to mitigate or fully prevent the effects of COVID is the way to go. The American health system simply can't handle what Endless is advocating. The economy can operate almost at 100% capacity if people just do their damn civic duty.