Part 2 - Will Continued Social Distancing Ultimately Destroy All Human Life on this Planet?

[RJG]

This is part 2 of the original post "The NON-TRUTHS of Our Current Covid-19 Policy"

Will Continued Social Distancing Ultimately Destroy All Human Life on this Planet?

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I know, I know… your first thought after reading this title is “Wow Roger, now you’ve really lost your mind!”. But humor me a bit and take a look at this analogy first, (…and then feel free to call me nuts, …if you still think so).

Firstly, my point of this analogy is to illustrate, what I see, as the catastrophic ending that we are all headed towards if we don’t change our course of action very soon. Although well intentioned, our current social distancing policies are having an opposite effect; the virus is only getting worse, not better. We are fast approaching a point of no return.

We fail to recognize that the healthy population (those with strong immune systems) on this planet are like the white blood cells of an individual’s body. Intentionally holding them back from an infection means that the infection will grow and mutate unabated. This is much like keeping a fire extinguisher hidden away from a fire. By the time we realize our error it will be too late. The rate of the virus replication will soon exceed mankind’s ability to extinguish it.

Of course, I hope I am wrong. And maybe one of you can show the flaw in my reasoning. If you want, you can just stop reading here and call me nuts, or if you are brave or curious enough to dare see what I see, then continue on. In this analogy, I’m using the following representations:

1. Cars = people
2. Car Tires = people’s immune system
3. Tires with lots of deep tread = good strong immune systems
4. Tires that are bald/balding = weak immune systems
5. Cars with punctured tires = dead people
6. A wide stretch of highway (aka the Highway of Life) = society; public life.
7. Thumb tacks scattered across the highway = covid-19 virus out in society
8. Slowing down traffic; slowing down tack infection = social distancing
9. Retreading (adding tread to) tires = vaccination to help increase immunity

Imagine that thumb tacks are randomly scattered all over the highway. The cars with good tires (“healthy cars”) simply run over and crush (kill) these tacks, while some of the cars with balding tires (“vulnerable cars”) are getting their tires punctured causing them to crash.

To help mitigate the deaths of these vulnerable cars, the government’s top science and medical experts have demanded that we slow down ALL traffic. They believe that slowing the spread of tack infections will result in saving more vulnerable cars.

[Mistake #1 - treating our population as ONE group; failing to realize that there are TWO segments to our population. We should encourage the ‘vulnerable’ segment to STOP socialization (i.e., stricter social distancing; quarantine), while encouraging the ‘healthy’ segment to SPEED UP socialization. The one-size-fits-all government policy of “SLOWING the spread for ALL” is the worst possible option. It not only results in more deaths to our vulnerable population, but it also allows the virus to continue to grow unabated (by keeping the healthy away from the virus).]

Government experts are quick to reject those that say we should allow the healthy cars to speed up and run free (i.e., implement “strategic herd immunity”) as being misinformed quacks, and warn us that if we listen to them then more cars would end up with punctured tires, because they say:

1) there is a slight chance that some of these healthy cars might get their tires punctured; they may actually have a weakness somewhere in their tire tread where a random tack might penetrate, and
2) some of these healthy cars might not kill all the tacks they encounter, some of the surviving tacks may escape, or be spit out, in front of the oncoming vulnerable cars that are still driving on the highway.

[Mistake #2 - this is akin to keeping a fire extinguisher away from a fire for 1) fear of burning the fire extinguisher itself, and 2) fear that the fire extinguisher may spread some of the fire while it is extinguishing the fire. The preference to let the fire run unabated only allows the fire to continue to grow in size.]

Our government experts nonetheless reject the opposing arguments and continue to demand that ALL traffic (including the healthy cars) slow down until a means (a vaccine) is developed which can add new tread to our balding tires. They tell us that this ability to add new tread to existing balding tires will help save more of our vulnerable cars and will ultimately end or minimize future tacks on the highway.

In the meantime, the policy of slowing down all cars does not seem to be working, the number of punctured tires is increasing at a faster and faster rate. Something must be wrong, why are things getting worse? Government experts respond by saying that we need even MORE slowdown of traffic.

[Mistake #3 - contrary to popular belief, “slowing down the spread” does NOT necessarily mean “saving more lives”. In this case, it does just the opposite. Slowing down, or keeping the fire extinguishers hidden away from a fire does not make the fire grow smaller, it makes it grow larger, thereby creating more deaths of our vulnerable population.]

The government experts rightly tell us that when a tack imbeds into the soft section of a balding tire, and assuming it has not already penetrated and punctured the tire, it starts to replicate, producing more tacks within the soft section of tire (its host). Soon, these cars with balding tires are so loaded with new tacks, that they start shedding tacks all over the highway, thereby increasing the total number of tacks out on the highway, making it even more dangerous for vulnerable cars to travel on.

Furthermore, government experts rightly tell us that each replication of a tack is a slight variation of the previous tack. Because of the laws of natural selection (aka survival of the fittest) the points of the surviving replicated tacks are now a little bit longer and stronger than the previous version. These mutated tacks now pose a threat to those cars with marginal treads that were once considered safe enough with the original version tacks.

So now it is February 2021, and we have developed the means to add enough tread to our balding tires to withstand the original version of the virus. A massive nationwide re-treading program is implemented making it safer for more cars to get back on the highway of life.

But wait. Our government experts are now suggesting that we keep the slowdown of ALL traffic, even though we have re-treaded tires on our vulnerable cars. The calls to allow the freedom and speeding up of our healthy (and recently re-treaded) cars are being rejected by our experts as “unsafe”. They say that new tack variants/mutations have arrived onto our highways and we may possibly have to wait until we develop another newer tread (vaccine) that can withstand this longer stronger tack. They demand that we keep ALL cars slowed down until we know if our recent re-treading will protect against these newer tacks.

[FATAL mistake #4 - is repeating the mistakes 1, 2, and 3. If we don’t act immediately and change course, then the party is over. If we allow the virus to grow to a point where we can no longer extinguish it, then it will extinguish us.]

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In conclusion, we can’t win this fight by playing defense; by continually hiding, nor can we develop vaccines at a fast enough pace to ever keep up with the latest mutations.

The reason the flu virus (and its many mutations) has not already doomed us is because we did not mess with mother nature; we did not socially distance our healthy population; we did not hold back our white blood cells (the protectors) away from the infection; we did not keep the fire extinguisher away from the fire that needed extinguishing.

If we don’t immediately unmask and start the full speed socialization of our healthy populations on this planet (including those recently vaccinated) then the party is over. The virus will have won the battle of natural selection (“survival of the fittest”).

[Sculptor1]

Will hysterical hyperbole and doom scrolling utlimitely get the ridicule it so richly deserves?

[Sy Borg]

World populations do not rest on US local policies.

[RJG]

World populations do not rest on US local policies.

Most countries seemingly follow our lead.

[Sculptor1]

World populations do not rest on US local policies.

Most countries seemingly follow our lead.

Oh yeah, all those countries pretending Covid does not exist, and rushing to get infected and die.

[Steve3007]

I'm not sure of how accurate an analogy the tyres/thumb tacks thing is. This:

We should encourage the ‘vulnerable’ segment to STOP socialization (i.e., stricter social distancing; quarantine), while encouraging the ‘healthy’ segment to SPEED UP socialization.

seems to me conditionally reasonable:

I see the argument for keeping the vulnerable section of the population, specifically, from close contact with others, if that section can be clearly identified. It's not just the old and I know from personal experience that this virus can affect different people in dramatically different ways that aren't always obviously correlated with anything like their age or prior state of health.

The argument for encouraging the healthy to socialize more would work if those people acted like vacuum cleaners, vacuuming up the virus from the environment. But they don't. Their immune systems kill the virus within their own bodies so it seems reasonable to conclude that they're less likely to spread it than those who remain infected. But that doesn't mean that they destroy it in the environment. So the analogy of cars with good tyres squashing/killing tacks doesn't quite work. A more accurate analogy would simply say that cars with good tyres don't actually generate new tacks and spread them on the road as much as cars with bald tyres do.

[Steve3007]

The rationale behind the concept of herd immunity (if we assume for the sake of argument that herd immunity applies in this case) is not that the immune remove the virus from the environment but that they remove themselves from the pool of potential spreaders by catching it and recovering. So their physical presence in the community doesn't act to suppress the virus. It just doesn't make it worse.

So a more accurate analogy would be that all cars which run over tacks start to spew out new tacks. But cars with better tyres spew out fewer new tacks than cars with bald tyres. Or they may even spew out no new tacks. But no cars squash tacks that are on the road.


If we decide that there is an identifiable section of the population who are not going to get seriously ill from the virus so we let them run free, so to speak, then if we're right, and they don't get seriously ill, we'll succeed in getting them immune and (if being immune means you don't spread it) remove them from the pool of spreaders. But if we get that wrong, then we can easily overwhelm health services with the seriously ill, with bad results for those ill people and for people with other conditions. It's that fear of a short-term overwhelming of health services that has caused governments to try to use social distancing to "flatten and broaden the curve".

[Sy Borg]

World populations do not rest on US local policies.

Most countries seemingly follow our lead.

Most of the world is in Asia, and they compete with the US, not follow it. Further, after the US's world-worst response to COVID, no one is looking to the US for guidance, not even its most subservient lickspittle, Australia.

[RJG]

The argument for encouraging the healthy to socialize more would work if those people acted like vacuum cleaners, vacuuming up the virus from the environment. But they don't.

But logically they do. Elsewise, herd immunity would be impossible. If everyone were simply "contributors" of the virus, and no one was a "remover" of the virus, then the protective effect of herd immunity would be impossible. Refer to my previous illustration (below) of how herd immunity works.

Note: The protective effect of herd immunity is achieved by adding healthy people to a given contaminated environment with vulnerable people so as to reduce the overall "density" of the virus exposure to the individual vulnerable person. The amount of the virus within a given environment, divided by the total number of people within that environment dictate the initial odds of a person getting infected. And then, the ratio of healthy people to total people within that same environment, multiplied by the initial odds, yields the "protective effect". This is the correct equation for determining the protective effect of herd immunity.

To help illustrate:

Imagine 10 people inside a room with 10 mosquitos flying about. Further imagine that 0 (none) of these people are healthy (a mosquito bite does not bother them) so that all 10 people in this room are vulnerable, whereas a mosquito bite would result in a severe reaction and certain death. So the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 100% (10 mosquitos / 10 total people) which equals 10 dead people.

Now imagine we add 10 healthy people to this room (environment) of 10 vulnerable people. So now the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 50% (10 mosquitos / 20 total people) which equals 5 dead people.

Now imagine we told these 10 healthy people in the room to strip down naked to expose 10 times more body surface area for the mosquitoes to bite, and then put the excess clothing around the vulnerable people to give them an extra layer of protection. So now the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 5% (10 mosquitos/(20 total people x 10 times more exposure to healthy people and more protection to vulnerable people)) which equals 0.5 dead people.

...as can be seen, healthy people are in effect "removers" of the virus, thereby creating the "protective effect" of herd immunity, to the vulnerable population.

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Their immune systems kill the virus within their own bodies so it seems reasonable to conclude that they're less likely to spread it than those who remain infected. But that doesn't mean that they destroy it in the environment.

Sure it does. For every virus (within the environment) that infects a healthy person is one less virus that can infect a vulnerable person.

Another way of looking at this is to assign each individual a Rt value (rate of transmission value). Those with healthy immune systems will have a Rt value <1, meaning that they kill more of the virus from the environment than they shed back into the environment. And those with weak immune systems will have a Rt value >1, meaning that they will shed more of the virus back into the environment than they kill.

And if we take all the people within a community (or a given environment) and add up all the Rt values and divide by total number of people, we will know if the net viral load in that community is increasing (Rt >1) or decreasing (Rt <1).

And, of course, the more healthy people within that community, makes a lower overall net Rt, and thereby provides a greater protective effect to the vulnerable.

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The rationale behind the concept of herd immunity (if we assume for the sake of argument that herd immunity applies in this case) is not that the immune remove the virus from the environment but that they remove themselves from the pool of potential spreaders by catching it and recovering. So their physical presence in the community doesn't act to suppress the virus. It just doesn't make it worse.

Not so. By having healthy "immune" people within a given environment, it greatly decreases the "density" of the virus per vulnerable person (meaning that it creates a lesser probability of infection), thereby providing the "protective effect" associated with herd immunity.

In other words, the more healthy people in a given environment the less likely a vulnerable person will be infected and die. And when the saturation of healthy people to vulnerable people (within this environment) reaches the "herd immunity threshold value" then all vulnerable people will (theoretically) be safe. Again, refer to my illustration (above) for more clarity.

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In conclusion, this means that our policy of social distancing our healthy population is having devastating effects on our vulnerable population. Also, we are making a horrendous mistake by continued masking and social distancing of our recently vaccinated and previously infected people. Since herd immunity is the ONLY solution to stopping this virus, we need to let our healthy population participate (they need to un-mask and start full time socialization), otherwise we will soon be at the point of no return, when it will be too late to realize our mistake, and the fire will be too large to put out (i.e. our army of healthy people will be smaller than the army of the virus).

[Steve3007]

But logically they do. Elsewise, herd immunity would be impossible. If everyone were simply "contributors" of the virus, and no one was a "remover" of the virus. Then the protective effect of herd immunity would be impossible. Refer to my previous illustration (below) of how herd immunity works.

No, you've misunderstood how herd immunity and how viruses work. The defining feature of a person who has immunity to a virus is not that they remove viruses form the environment any more than people who don't have immunity. Their defining feature is that their immune system kills the virus once it is inside them. To the extent that this stops the virus from reproducing inside them and then new viruses being exhaled/sneezed/otherwise sent back out into the environment, that's how herd immunity works.

So, as I said, you're incorrect to state that healthy people socializing more would remove the virus from the environment. That's not how it works.

...as can be seen, healthy people are in effect "removers" of the virus, thereby creating the "protective effect" of herd immunity, to the vulnerable population.

No they're not.

Sure it does. For every virus (within the environment) that infects a healthy person is one less virus that can infect a vulnerable person.

It doesn't work like because of the large numbers of individual viruses spread.

If I am infected and I sneeze (for example) I send millions or billions of individual viruses into the environment. The chance that each of those individual viruses is going to enter the body of another person is very small and has nothing to do with whether that person is immune or not.

So obviously, as I've said, a large proportion of people with immunity doesn't remove viruses from the environment like some kind of vacuum cleaner. What it does is reduce the rate at which new viruses replicate within people's bodies.

That's why I said your analogy is inaccurate in saying that cars with good tyres squash tacks, and that it would be more accurate to say that no cars squash tacks but that some cars create new tacks more rapidly than others do.

[Pattern-chaser]

World populations do not rest on US local policies.

Most countries seemingly follow our lead.

On the contrary: most countries followed sensible policies that America is only just coming to. The UK and Brazil are other examples of where negligence leads. But China and New Zealand are two quite different countries whose policies have been, and continue to be, quite effective. Most other countries have not followed the American lead, but simply watched in dismay while the idiot Trump could only suggest intravenous bleach. The US has not lead the world in this.

[Thomyum2]

But logically they do. Elsewise, herd immunity would be impossible. If everyone were simply "contributors" of the virus, and no one was a "remover" of the virus. Then the protective effect of herd immunity would be impossible. Refer to my previous illustration (below) of how herd immunity works.

No, you've misunderstood how herd immunity and how viruses work. The defining feature of a person who has immunity to a virus is not that they remove viruses form the environment any more than people who don't have immunity. Their defining feature is that their immune system kills the virus once it is inside them. To the extent that this stops the virus from reproducing inside them and then new viruses being exhaled/sneezed/otherwise sent back out into the environment, that's how herd immunity works.

So, as I said, you're incorrect to state that healthy people socializing more would remove the virus from the environment. That's not how it works.

...as can be seen, healthy people are in effect "removers" of the virus, thereby creating the "protective effect" of herd immunity, to the vulnerable population.

No they're not.

I agree - RJG is conflating 'healthy people' with 'immune people'. 'Healthy people' who have never been previously exposed or infected have not developed immunity and still do in fact spread the disease. The fact that a person is healthy or does not become symptomatic after exposure does not mean that they do not have to go through the process and the time period required to develop antibodies in order to become immune and no longer pose a risk of transmission to others.

[RJG]

So, as I said, you're incorrect to state that healthy people socializing more would remove the virus from the environment. That's not how it works.

It is how it works. The more healthy immune people within a given environment, the more "protective effect" to the vulnerable people. Once we saturate a given environment with 60% (assuming that this is the correct value for covid-19) of healthy immune people, then effectively this stops the virus altogether, creating protection for the other 40% vulnerable people. Again, re-read my mosquito illustration to grasp how this works.

According to your (mis-)interpretation of herd immunity, all we have to do is not let the immune people contaminate (shed) virus back into the environment and this somehow "magically" creates a protective effect for the vulnerable. So how exactly does that work? ...can you give an illustration that shows the mechanism and the math that proves this out?

Simply not letting these 60% healthy immune people contaminate (add virus back into) the environment doesn't cut it. For if that were true, then we could guarantee that they don't contaminate the environment by moving these people OUT of the environment. Not only would this then make the 60% number totally meaningless (for then it would not be about meeting a specific saturation value, but more about preventing healthy people from adding to the already contaminated environment), but then also, the deaths of vulnerable people would more than double (as the "density" of the virus per person more than doubles). Again, re-read my mosquito illustration to grasp how this works.

Logically, the protective effects of herd immunity only works because healthy immune people "remove" more of the virus than they "add". In other words their individual Rt values are <1.

We cannot logically get protective effects of herd immunity if healthy immune people don't "remove" more of the virus than "add", within a given environment.

Again, please show HOW the protective effect of herd immunity actually works, ...that is if you believe there is such a thing as herd immunity.

[RJG]

I agree - RJG is conflating 'healthy people' with 'immune people'. 'Healthy people' who have never been previously exposed or infected have not developed immunity and still do in fact spread the disease. The fact that a person is healthy or does not become symptomatic after exposure does not mean that they do not have to go through the process and the time period required to develop antibodies in order to become immune and no longer pose a risk of transmission to others.

Thom, if it helps to clarify things, then you can interpret my usage of the words "healthy" or "healthy immune" people to mean those people who are 'immune'; those that have recently been vaccinated, and those that have been previously infected and now have antibodies.

[RJG]

Steve, for your reference. Please point out the specific error that you believe I made:

Note: The protective effect of herd immunity is achieved by adding healthy people to a given contaminated environment with vulnerable people so as to reduce the overall "density" of the virus exposure to the individual vulnerable person. The amount of the virus within a given environment, divided by the total number of people within that environment dictate the initial odds of a person getting infected. And then, the ratio of healthy people to total people within that same environment, multiplied by the initial odds, yields the "protective effect". This is the correct equation for determining the protective effect of herd immunity.

To help illustrate:

Imagine 10 people inside a room with 10 mosquitos flying about. Further imagine that 0 (none) of these people are healthy (a mosquito bite does not bother them) so that all 10 people in this room are vulnerable, whereas a mosquito bite would result in a severe reaction and certain death. So the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 100% (10 mosquitos / 10 total people) which equals 10 dead people.

Now imagine we add 10 healthy people to this room (environment) of 10 vulnerable people. So now the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 50% (10 mosquitos / 20 total people) which equals 5 dead people.

Now imagine we told these 10 healthy people in the room to strip down naked to expose 10 times more body surface area for the mosquitoes to bite, and then put the excess clothing around the vulnerable people to give them an extra layer of protection. So now the odds of a vulnerable person dying from a mosquito bite in this scenario is 5% (10 mosquitos/(20 total people x 10 times more exposure to healthy people and more protection to vulnerable people)) which equals 0.5 dead people.

...as can be seen, healthy people are in effect "removers" of the virus, thereby creating the "protective effect" of herd immunity, to the vulnerable population.