Yes, herd immunity is pointless if the right kind of mutations occur.
Also herd immunity requires such a large proportion of the population to be infected that hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and many key jobs would not get done due to the number of people suffering from bad flu symptoms through to being in the process of dying.

Yeah, seems that way to me too. The idea that the virus can mutate enough to make our defenses from having it previously, ineffective, is freaking scary. I wonder if it mutates enough, will we need another vaccine developed for the new mutations.

I think there are many strains of influenza. I think smart people make educated guess on which particular strains are likely to cause problems in a given year and we vaccinate for the top couple (few).

I don't know as much about this as I would like, so maybe one of the smart folks here can pipe in?

Here in Michigan, we are beginning to see a small pushback to the shelter in place orders. Some folks believe they have some civil right to go about the business of infecting others, to satisfy their need for instant gratification. Herd immunity is often used as the artificial argument to justify their selfishness.

Opening up society would eventually reach the herd immunity point, but you have pointed out the cost of doing so. Not to mention the tens of thousands of extra deaths. Sadly, some are fine with this cost....of course, until it would impact them. (too late)

My understanding is that stats are obtained on which common strains of flu are trending in the opposite hemisphere and the vaccine is setup to counter those. I don't know why that is more effective than, or why it wouldn't work to, build a vaccine that covered all known strains.

As it stands we must resist these calls since they are premature. Thing is we need to avoid becoming entrenched and polarized since at some point it will be the right call given that the economic strain will be greater than the risks posed due to vaccines/treatments/testing regimes/increased capacity/proximity to herd immunity.

It's not that people are fine with others dying. They're just seeing how these shutdowns and restrictions are affecting every aspect of our society, and getting worried...and rightfully so. We're in a lose-lose situation right now. It's gonna be bad, no matter what we do.

...and we're adamantly divided on which evil is worse. 'tis the American way. :\

The spread of the covid-19 is based on two things.

1. How dense the population is.
2. How dense the population is.

^ :clap:

...and the irony here is, these same people were the ones worried about Obamacare killing grandma...:|