I'm going to discuss this with you, working on the assumption that you are a good person who is either poorly informed or has misunderstood the data. Please be respectful though (not everyone is).
https://twitter.com/catlogic2020/status/1318093333126840320
1. There is a second wave but as the graph nicely shows, the rate of growth is much slower this time. Believe me, we are all very relieved about that. But a few ICUs eg Liverpool are already stretched to the limit.
2. I totally give credit to lockdown measures and #HandsFaceSpace for this. Tweet 6/6 in my thread makes that very clear and also our gratitude to everyone for working so hard to make that happen.
3. 'Herd immunity' can only be provided by vaccines. That's where the term is used. That's how we have eradicated smallpox and almost eradicated polio. That is how we control measles, mumps etc. NONE of these ancient viral diseases went away simply by letting everyone catch them.
3. contd. I see the devastating impact on the economy like everyone does. But COVID-19 won't go away simply by ignoring it. No disease does that. The economic damage gets worse as the virus spreads more, not better.
3. contd. By letting the virus run amock, we will see far more economic damage in the long run because the eventual impact would be so huge - far worse than the first wave.
I completely respect and share your worries for the economy and about the need to care for patients with other diseases eg cancer, disease, stroke, etc. We aren't disagreeing on that impact - only on the best way out of this catastrophe.
But denying or ignoring the reality won't solve our problem. We can only do that by facing up to the facts. There are different approaches of course and you have every right to debate these publicly - I respect that too. But let's stick to the facts.
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