natural herd immunity will cost $12T in GDP, $1.3T in medical costs and an economy disrupted for a year
Let's take what happened in the UK as a precautionary tale of why herd immunity is a nonsensical idea for 2020 covid-19 outbreak
On 13 March, Sir Patrick stated that about 60% of the population would need to become infected for society to have "herd immunity" - effectively some 40 million people in the UK.
"Communities will become immune to it and that's going to be an important part of controlling this longer term," he told Sky News.
the communications chief shared NHS England's own advice on holding internal work events, but say "we are not telling you what to do".
"We want people to be infected with Covid-19," the notes say. "The best way of managing it is herd immunity and protect the vulnerable."
This failed
After days of scrutinising data, Hall and the team found that the total number of positive swabs in Italy and the UK were doubling much faster, closer to every three days. They presented this to SPI-M on 20 March.
The NHS was now just 14 days from being overwhelmed, according to their projections.
Over the next seven days after the release of the report, an escalating series of actions was taken. On 16 March the government set out its social distancing policy, on 18 March it announced schools would be closed and on 20 March pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, theatres, cinemas and gyms were all closed with immediate effect.
Four months on from the introduction of the lockdown, scientists remain unsure how long any immunity from coronavirus might last.
Herd immunity is a mug's response - proven false in the short term and one that devastates the economy and ends up with more lives lost - a lose-lose scenario