White House Cites Bizarre Herd-Immunity Petition

The petition is signed by such notable experts as Dr. Johnny Bananas, Dr. I.P. Freely, and Dr. Person Fakename.

Doctor Dwight Mannsburden was apparently not available.

The original investigation by Sky News revealed that the fake names were actually some of the more reputable signatories. At least they were doctors, albeit imaginary ones. The list also included every kind of quack, crank and self-professed expert you can imagine: homeopaths, massage therapists, hypnotists, and one guy who claims to cure disease through song.

From the comments: “Also on the list: Dr Harold Shipman. This one’s a legit physician and also one of the most prolific serial killers of all time.”

11 thoughts on “White House Cites Bizarre Herd-Immunity Petition

  1. I’ve had it. Friends have had it. No one I know has died.

    You feel like crap for a week and then you’re fine.

    Stop reporting “cases.” Who cares who’s got the flu. How many deaths?

    Not many.

    1. Yes many

      5000 per week

      and now increasing

      … as are hospitalizations (up 23% in the past ten days)
      … as are ICU beds (up 21% in the past 10 days)
      … as are the number on ventilators (up 20% in the past 10 days)

      The number of new cases predicts the number of fatalities. If you multiply the number of cases times a range of percentages, you can predict the future number of fatalities in two to three weeks. The low end of that range is about 1.4% and the high end is about 1.8%. Thus, if you have 50000 confirmed new cases per day today, you will have 700-900 daily fatalities in 2-3 weeks. If today’s number of confirmed cases increases to 70,000, then the predicted fatality range increases to 1000-1250.

      Yes, you are correct in that “only” 1.4% to 1.8 % of confirmed cases result in death, making the odds better than 50-1 in your favor, so it does not seem as if there is so much death around us, but there is, because of the sheer magnitude of the spread. Math is unforgiving.

      So if you are under 40 and in good health, the odds are extremely good that you will survive. And as we know, if doctors use the most potent available concoction of drugs, even an elderly fat man can survive.

      But there is still the dramatic finality of that death count, which is more than all the soldiers lost by the US Army in the European and Mediterranean fronts in WW2. We have lost more people to COVID than we did to Hitler, and we did so in just eight months, with much more to come.

    2. well…my wife knows people in their thirties and forties who have had it… they didn’t die but a significant number of them are now saddled with long term complications that haven’t really subsided as time has passed. They now have chronic conditions of various kinds. Some of them find it hard to get out of bed because of chronic fatigue and others have various neurological issues. It will be a huge societal burden if this repeats itself over an ever larger segment of the US population.

    3. I have a gun. I have friends who have guns. My dad was a cop with a lot of guns for 30 years. No one I know has been shot dead. Still I think it is important that we know the number of guns and the number of gun deaths.

  2. Also on the list: Dr Harold Shipman. This one’s a legit physician and also one of the most prolific serial killers of all time.

  3. We probably need someone in office that is good with math, but that will never happen. If we have a vaccine that is 70 percent effective but only 50 percent of the population will trust it and get immunized…that doesn’t help much. As for herd immunity; estimates are 260 million to reach that with a one percent death rate = another 2.6 million corpses. We’re doomed.

  4. It is, of course, no surprise that Trump thinks of us as herd animals. A con man always has the attitude that everyone else is a mark, and Trump’s success in duping the public as to his true wealth, business acumen, and intelligence would have confirmed him in that. And certainly his supporters have done nothing but support that belief. You can read their posts here, saying exactly what they are supposed to say, no matter how much of insult to human intelligence it is. “I’m a libertarian who supports Trump!” Sheesh.

    1. don’t pretend you know even the first thing about herd immunity…the virus is likely to become endemic at this point…like the seasonal flu. Killing people to achieve a fictitious “herd immunity” is euthanasia of the old and vulnerable by another name. Euthanasia was also very popular with the Nazis and now its clearly gaining popularity with the GOP. Sweden with a better healthcare system than the US was unable protect its elderly and at risk population. In the end, they just put those folks on morphine drips and watched them die.

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