Not an expert myself, but the naive calculations that I have seen with regards to herd immunity are incorrect. The precise numbers are just to illustrate the thought process.
“We need 60-70% of people to be immune, people 65 and younger make up 65 % percent of the population, so if they catch it we have achieved herd immunity to protect the elderly”.
The flaw with that reasoning is that the immune people need to be essentially randomly distributed in the population. However, the elderly make up a sub population with their own distinct networks, in which the virus can spread after the quarantines are lifted.
It also would probably not work in much (probably the larger part) of the world, where the elderly live together with their families, unless one would relocate them to special made quarantines.
Not an expert myself, but the naive calculations that I have seen with regards to herd immunity are incorrect. The precise numbers are just to illustrate the thought process.
“We need 60-70% of people to be immune, people 65 and younger make up 65 % percent of the population, so if they catch it we have achieved herd immunity to protect the elderly”.
The flaw with that reasoning is that the immune people need to be essentially randomly distributed in the population. However, the elderly make up a sub population with their own distinct networks, in which the virus can spread after the quarantines are lifted.
It also would probably not work in much (probably the larger part) of the world, where the elderly live together with their families, unless one would relocate them to special made quarantines.