I’ve heard people say that achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 is the key… with that we can get back to normal.  Protesters are saying without some risk, we cannot be free.  I really wonder if they have any idea what they are talking about.  I’ve done some analysis, to help illustrate the impact of achieving herd immunity.  Personally, I believe the cost is too high and that we should extend and continue to apply social distancing (hate that phrase by the way… should be physical distancing, or simply stay away from me!) until there is a vaccine, or therapeutic treatment that would reduce the severity and death rate to something more like 0.1%, comparable to the flu.

Anyway… here is the math for herd immunity impact.

Starting point:
US Population = 330,000,000
Cases reported = 1,176,239 as of 5 May 2020
Deaths reported = 68,105 as of 5 May 2020 – 5.79% death rate
Assume death rate is over-stated due to inadequate testing by 3 times = 1.93% Death rate

Achieving 70% herd immunity point
Cases = 231,000,000
Deaths = 4,458,350 … this is 1.4% of the US Population

At this level, everyone will know someone that dies from this disease as most people know well over 100 people, so at 1.4 deaths per 100 people, you will know someone or two, or many more that will pass from this COVID-19 to achieve herd immunity

Now let’s also look at the cost of such devastation.  If we assume just $2,500 per case for the cost of drugs, care, away from work (I think this is conservative) and we assume $150,000 is the cost of each death, for drugs, care, and impact to families (three weeks in a hospital must be much more than this)… then the cost of achieving herd immunity is more than $1.2T in direct costs, this is in addition to the rescue/stimulus funding that has been allocated and will be allocated in subsequent phases.  Total cost to economy is likely to be $5 to 6T.

When someone talks about achieving herd immunity, you now have at least an idea of what they are implying in number of deaths, and potential costs.

It would be far less expensive and less deadly to give every man, woman, and child $10,000 for supplies and incentive to have them stay in absolute quarantine for 4 weeks to eradicate this virus (at least in the USA).

A continuation in my attempt to channel Mark Twain into today’s world…

If self-promotion was an Olympic sport, Mr. Trump would sweep Gold, Silver and Bronze.

I hear capitalism makes for the best healthcare system, I suppose it is true if you have money or are famous, or a good job. Maybe the rest of us will just try to avoid the Trump virus.

Seems like a whole lot of people are discovering during the lock down what it’s like to be retired without an income and too little savings, might just be a much-needed wake-up call about retirement savings when we get back to work.

When we are done with lock-down, don’t say you don’t know, when I ask you where should we go to dinner.

I cannot understand why anyone would think of a pandemic as a partisan opportunity, the virus doesn’t know about politics, but it has an uncanny knack for highlighting politic divides.

We wanted a strong federal response to the pandemic, until we get one.

How is it that the wealthiest country in the world has the longest food lines ever?  Guess wealth means something different these days.

Nothing like homeschooling to bring about an appreciation for teachers that occupy our children for 6 or 7 blessed hours each day.

Now that sports are sidelined, maybe poetry and art will take their rightful place in the attention of mankind.   ESPN, was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, maybe becomes the Poetry and Arts Programming Network (PAPN).

The GOP leader I admired most in my time, said in his second inaugural address for Americans to “bind up the nation’s wounds” “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”  While our current leader seems inclined toward malice toward everyone, charity to only those that praise him before God as right and mighty.  Then he still says he gets worse press than a president that had half-a-country pissed at him in Civil War.

In my day, we thought if women got the vote, they’d force all us men to be nicer and look after the world better.  We were wrong, they have the vote, and we are no nicer than before.

If women agreed, then we’d have change.

I think you can be nice to half the people half the time and get half way there with half of them.

Mark Twain (imagined)