The vaccine hail Mary is weird to me. We've seen that herd immunity can be achieved (see Sweden). People under 65 with sufficient levels of vitamin D have extremely low odds of dying from this disease, less than even the flu. The CDC reported that less than 10% of deaths reported were from Covid alone. We're probably already near herd immunity with hospitalizations plummeting everywhere. Why are we still pinning everything on hopes for a vaccine?
The problem is that the people who back reopening are also against precautions that would make reopening safer. If I could trust the random people I'll encounter to wear their masks correctly and stay home if they're sick, maybe I would feel safe going out again. But instead politics has emboldened these people to behave in ways that put the people around them at more risk than necessary.
Not sure where to start with these statements, but they aren't helpful.
"We've seen that herd immunity can be achieved (see Sweden)."
No it can't. By the end of July 2020 only 6% of the population was known to have antibodies, according to the Swedish Public Health Agency[1]. It is estimated that 70% to 90% of a population needs such antibodies to achieve herd immunity[2]
"People under 65 with sufficient levels of vitamin D have extremely low odds of dying from this disease."
Vitamin D has not been scientifically proven as a preventative treatment for COVID-19. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a report summarising the research studies on Vitamin D for COVID-19 and found that 'no causal relationship between vitamin D status and COVID‑19 was found after adjustment for confounders such as comorbidity, socio-demographics, ethnicity, BMI and other baseline factors.' [3]
"We're probably already near herd immunity"
If you are referring to the USA here this is likely not true. No one knows the "true" infection rate, but even if you use the upper estimates of Imperial College modelling[4] this figure is 72 million, or 22% of the population.
"... less than even the flu"
Again not true. Every age group has worse outcomes from COVID-19 than the flu. If you are 50-64 you are almost 5 times as likely to die[5]
"... hospitalizations plummeting everywhere"
The hospitalisation rate is down, but not "plummeting". There are still 32,000 people hopsitalised in the U.S. [6] and a number of forecasters predicting a rise over the next 4 weeks[7].
Then why are new hospitalizations and new cases nearly non-existent in Sweden? There's only 13 people in serious or critical condition in the entire country, according to: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ No mask orders or shutdowns of schools or shelter in place ever occurred in Sweden. They achieved comparable results to other European countries like France, Spain, UK as well as the US with no lockdowns whatsoever.
Here is a randomized clinical trial on Vitamin D, released a few days ago:
Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study
"Our pilot study demonstrated that administration of a high dose of Calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a main metabolite of vitamin D endocrine system, significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19. Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease, but larger trials with groups properly matched will be required to show a definitive answer."
Also, take a look at the Excess Deaths chart: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm We are already back to average levels or somewhere near a bad flu season as is. We only had a substantially higher excess death count for 6-8 weeks there, and only by a few thousand. The data is certainly not matching up with the extraordinary disruption of people's lives. It's time to move on.
