Diverging from much of the world, Sweden let COVID-19 spread in hopes the population would develop “herd immunity.” But the risky strategy failed, a new report finds…
— from an article by health reporter Steven Reinberg, on WebMD.com, August 13, 2020
Back in early May, the well-respected Mayo Clinic posted the following 2-minute explanation of the term “Herd Immunity”:
In this video, Dr. Gregory Poland lays out two possible paths to COVID herd immunity: allowing large number of people to contract the disease “naturally”… or “artificially” inducing herd immunity via a vaccine. If this expert’s assessment is correct and the US could achieve herd immunity — without a vaccine — by allowing 70% of the population to get infected and build up natural antibodies… well, that would mean 230 million people would need to be infected, and successfully recover.
So far, here in the US, we have officially counted about 8.2 million cases, and perhaps 8 million have recovered. Officially, at least 219,000 have died of COVID complications. So the official proportion of deaths appears to be about 2.75% of those who become infected.
That proportion suggests that a theoretical ‘natural’ herd immunity, requiring 230 individuals to become infected and survive, would result in about 6.3 million American failing to survive. We can easily see why an ‘artificial’ immunity approach, using a vaccine, might seem preferable. In August, a World Health Organization (WHO) official described the approach of pushing for herd immunity without a vaccine as “very dangerous.”
So, what happened in Sweden?
I mentioned yesterday in Part One, that the World Health Organization has been tracking COVID cases and fatalities across the globe. No doubt some of the numbers are inaccurate, given a world population of 7.8 billion individuals scattered over 197 million square miles.
Perhaps the numbers here in the US are inaccurate, as well? I also mentioned, yesterday, a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claiming that the US is probably under-counting the actual number of COVID fatalities by 25% or more, and that, based on past rates of US deaths between March and October, it appears that the country may have already suffered 300,000 fatalities — rather than the official count of about 219,000.
I also shared some recent WHO numbers — which, as mentioned, may or may not be accurate. Numbers of new cases, for the most recent 24-hour period:
The US (population 330 million) : 60,000 new cases
India (population 1.3 billion) : 55,000 new cases
China (population 1.4 billion) : 23 cases
Sweden (population 10 million) : 0 new cases
If you recently spent some time researching “herd Immunity”, you likely came across a number of articles critical of Sweden’s relaxed approach to the global pandemic, which basically relied on each individual’s common sense. Gyms, stores and restaurants remained open; schools were open for kids up to age 16. Gatherings of more than 50 people were prohibited, however. Swedish authorities predicted that 40% of the people in Stockholm would contract COVID and develop protective antibodies by May. The actual prevalence of antibodies, however, was only 15%, according to the study published August 11 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Numerous well-written articles have concluded that Sweden’s attempt to reach “herd immunity” was a dismal failure, as demonstrated by a Swedish death rate 10 times higher than the surrounding Scandinavian countries.
But according to Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Anders Tegnell, the country’s “open economy” approach to the pandemic never aimed to achieve herd immunity. The aim was something rather different. Tegnell and his public health colleagues concluded, early on, that it would be impossible to prevent the eventual spread of the coronavirus, and government-mandated lockdowns would merely slow the spread — but eventually, the entire country would be exposed, sooner or later. They felt that lockdowns could only postpone the inevitable death toll… and in the end, the same number of people would eventually succumb to the disease. Sweden decided to allow the suffering to happen on its own schedule, concluding that the economic damage from lockdowns ultimately made no sense.
An interesting approach to a complex problem. About 0.06 percent of Sweden’s population have died from COVID, so far. In Norway, a country that shares a 1,010-mile-long border with Sweden, the percentage that have died, so far, is 0.005 percent — less than one tenth Sweden’s death rate. Only time will tell, if the surrounding Scandinavian countries will eventually catch up with Sweden.
Incidentally, the current COVID death rate in the US appears to be slightly higher than in Sweden: 0.07 percent.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch…
…the ranch being Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We’ve had zero reported COVID deaths, and an infection rate — since March — of about 0.5%. (Compare that with the overall US infection rate of 2.4%.)
“Herd immunity” — Pagosa style?
When I moved to Pagosa in 1993, from a somewhat larger town in Alaska, I slowly had to come to terms with a new culture. In Juneau, Alaska, the population was packed relatively close together, especially in the downtown area — but people didn’t seem to mind the crowding. In fact, people in Juneau seemed eager to spend time with one another.
The folks living in Pagosa Springs, in 1993 and even in 2020, have consistently seemed to value personal privacy over community gatherings. I have been struck, over the years, by the number of people here who have bragged that they “can’t see any neighbors” from their windows, as if a neighbor were the last thing one would want in one’s view.
I will be the first to admit that I’m quite comfortable spending time at home, with just the family around. I wasn’t comfortable when I first arrived here, however, having spent the previous 20 years in a highly social community. I wondered if I had landed in the wrong town.
But I’ve become part of the Pagosa herd… a herd that tended to keep its distance from each other, even before the arrival of the coronavirus. And keeping one’s distance seems like a good health practice, nowadays. A practice than might just keep us alive?