It is so perpetually exhausting to have to correct these medically and scientifically illiterate pub bores that somehow have national voices gifted to them not by talent or knowledge, but by virtue of nothing other than their volume.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge
Herd immunity does not work like this - as we teach in GCSE biology. Individual immunity, typically via vaccination, prevent the spread of a contagious disease through a population when a majority of that population are immunised and this cannot infect others when exposed to it.
We don’t know if this will work for COVID-19, as a) there is no vaccine b) symptomless infection occurs c) we don’t know if having had the disease confers immunity... d) or if it does, with any permanence.
e) vaccine-less herd immunity (with the previous crippling caveats) will require more people to get the disease, and there more people to die. f) I believe exposure rates in the U.K. are currently around 5%, 17% in London. Herd immunity requires >80%.
Apologies if I’ve made any errors here, this is not really my area of expertise. Please do correct me below.
What @toadmeister has done here is to confidently and loudly mistake ignorance for knowledge, because the facts don’t fit his preconceived ideology. Dangerously so.
I suppose the broader point is that in science we are trained to and predisposed to perpetually identify where we are wrong. Look at your work and ask ‘how am I wrong about this?’
Without that you are an ideologue.
Without that you are an ideologue.
This is exhausting because of
@Painpoint‘a 4th Law of Thermodynamics: ‘The amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than required to create it.'
@Painpoint‘a 4th Law of Thermodynamics: ‘The amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than required to create it.'
Fortunately...
Just not today though, cos I’m interviewing @MicrobiomDigest and @StuartJRitchie about...
...fraud in science. Stay frosty people.
...fraud in science. Stay frosty people.
Quick addendum from m'colleague on immunity
