Total trainwreck of herd immunity strategy

(Dr. Wolfgang Feist, 2020/05/07)

Now the total trainwreck of the often-praised "Swedish approach" to NOT fight the
Corona-pandemic is obvious.

The deaths in figure 1 are only excess deaths up to Apr. 21st.The 'official number' at
that time was 1765 and the dying still goes on (it can take up to several months to die
from this infection).

If Sweden starts to consequently mitigate now, there will still be at least ~8 000
unnecessary deaths in Sweden alone.

If going on with the herd immunity (“business as usual”) it will be more than 20 000.

Figure 1: Excess Deaths caused by covid-19 pandemic in Sweden. Remark: Persons may have died
from other reasons than the virus (a not treated stroke, e.g.); but this needs to be counted as a death
caused by the pandemic, too.
1. Let us start with "what to do now?
( I) The Swedish nation deserves an apology from their CDC and from the
government.

(II) Persons with a moral background and competence have to be put in charge of the
further approach (and fast!).

Concrete actions recommended now:

a) general recommendation to wear masks #Mask4all

(seek help from Korea; import millions of masks)

b) apply at least the "5 rules" from S-Korea for improved distancing (easy to find on
the web)

c) introduce the "2 m distance" rule

d) ramp up testing now

2. Analysis

2.1 Core speculative assumption leading to the mistake

There has never been any evidence behind the speculative claim, that the number of
infections have already reached half of the Swedish population and that >95% of all
cases are just asymptomatic. That was the core mistake.

The scientific evidence always was on the opposite side. I posted this more than a
month ago:

(i) If there were more than four times the persons infected compared to the
'confirmed cases' in Hongkong, S-Korea, AUT, NZ ... it would never have
been possible for these countries to contain the outbreaks.

(ii) In Iceland, there were is extensive testing from the very beginning, they
have found only a few asymptomatic cases – lot’s of very mild cases. The
might have missed a few – but not really much, because they are testing
the whole population. Their IFR stands at 0,55% - some may still day, some
cases may be detected by antibody tests later. Because it’s the same virus
everywhere a mortality (IFR) between 0,4% to 0,75% is a good estimation
at this moment – if everybody can be treated with best availably care.
2.2 Swedish undercounting

Now, of course, Swedish regime for testing and counting confirmed cases was (and
still is) totally undercounting; they detected only about one fourth of the cases
compared to the S-Korea procedure. Well, they knew that and said that this was
intended: "For herd immunity strategy we do not need more testing".

This undercounting is the main reason for high CFR (Case Fatality Rate) in Sweden;
this number is calculated just by dividing the “counted confirmed deaths” by the
confirmed cases. This naïve number stands at this time (2020/05/07) at 12.3% in
Sweden – and that looks really frightening; but, as mentioned, the reason is just the
lazy counting of confirmed cases caused by the decision to run “herd immunity by
infection with the real infection”. If the testing intensity would have been as rigorous as
in S-Korea, Sweden’s case count would be about 5 times higher and the case fatality
rate in the range of 2.4%; still, there might be up to 3 additional “very mild cases” for
every case even not detected by the S-Korean testing procedure.

2.3 Mild cases and asymptomatic cases

Yes, there are very mild cases and even a few asymptomatic ones. How many these
are, unfortunately a scientific solid assessment is still not available. From what I have
seen the dark factor might be between 5 and 15 {with respect to the Germany
counting procedure, which is less efficient than the S-Korean, but much more
sensitive than the Swedish}. My sources for this are the published studies from
serology tests in Germany (“Heinsberg” study) and the analysis of the extensive
testing in Iceland.

2.3.1 Estimation of the Mortality Rate

This will result (with the true death tolls from excess death counting) in an IFR of
between 0,3% at the lowest and 1,1% at an high estimate. (IFR = infection fatality
rate, number of people who die after being infected; an important fact here is, that it
takes time to die from Covid-19, up to several months).

2.3.2 Reduction of Error Bars

It will take another ~14 days to get more precise data from improved serology tests
(antibody tests) to lower the error bar of the estimation in 2.3.1. Studies under way in
Israel e.g.

2.3.3 Immunity in the Population so far

These facts show, that still at least 87% of the Swedish population is NOT immune.
Therefore, many further deaths can still be avoided, if a responsible approach is at
least taken now. This leads to the consequences given in Chapter 1.
3. Lessons Learned

(1) To be a scientist comes with a responsibility. In the absence of sufficient data,

it may be better to take a cautious approach on the safe side.

(2) The "safe side" is the path, in which there are less humans suffering and less
deaths; it's not the lazy-approach of just do nothing and wait.

(3) Some persons during this epidemic have shown a persistent display of
arrogance and cold-bloodedness. This has damaged the reputation of science.
There needs to be a renewed "Oath of Hyppocrates", not only for medics, but
for scientists, too.