On May 3rd, the New York Times bannered “Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the US, Experts Now Believe” and reported that “there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable – at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.”

In other words the ‘news’ sources that were opposing the governments’ taking action against Covid19 – Libertarian ’news’ sites that oppose Governmental Laws and Regulations, regardless of the predominant view by the vast majority of the scientists who specialize in studying the given subject – are looking wronger all the time, as this “Novel Corona Virus” (which is what it was originally called) becomes less and less “Novel,” and more and more understood scientifically.

The “Herd Immunity” advocates for anti Covid 19 policies have been saying that Governments should just let the Corona Virus spread until Nature takes its course and such a large proportion of the population have survived the infection as to then greatly reduce the likelihood that an uninfected person will become infected. An uninfected person will increasingly be surrounded by people who have developed a Natural Immunity to the disease, and by people who don’t and never did become infected by it. The vulnerable people will have become eliminated (died) or else cured, and so they won’t be spreading the disease to others. That’s the Libertarian ’solution’, the final solution to the Covid 19 problem, according to Libertarians.

For example, on 9 April 2020, Forbes Magazine headlined “After Rejecting A Corona Virus Lockdown, Sweden Sees Rise In Deaths” and reported that, “Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has continuously advocated for laid back measures, saying on Swedish TV Sunday that the Pandemic could be defeated by Herd Immunity, or the indirect protection from a large portion of a population being Immune to an infection, or a combination of Immunity and Vaccination. However, critics have argued that with a Corona Virus Vaccine could be more than a year away, and insufficient evidence that Corona Virus patients that recover are Immune from becoming infected again, the strategy of relying on Herd Immunity and Vaccinations [is] ineffective.”

The Libertarian proposal of relying upon “Herd Immunity” for producing policies against this disease has continued, nonetheless.

CNN headlined on 28 April 2020, “Sweden says its Corona Virus approach has worked. The numbers suggest a different story”, and reported that

Fortune Magazine headlined on 30 July 2020

“How parts of India inadvertently achieved Herd Immunity”, and reported that, “Around 57% of people across parts of India’s financial hub of Mumbai have Corona Virus antibodies, a July study found, indicating that the population may have inadvertently achieved the controversial ‘Herd Immunity’ protection from the Corona Virus.”

Furthermore

Herd immunity is an approach to the Corona Virus Pandemic where, instead of instituting Lockdowns and other restrictions to slow infections, Authorities allow daily life to go on as normal, letting the disease spread. In theory, enough people will become infected, recover, and gain Immunity that the spread will slow on its own and people who are not Immune will be protected by the Immunity of those who are. University of Chicago researchers estimated in a Paper published in May that achieving Herd Immunity from COVID 19 would require 67% of people to be Immune to the disease. Mayo Clinic estimates 70% of the US population will need to be Immune for the US to achieve Herd Immunity, which can also be achieved by vaccinating that proportion of a population.

On 27 September 2020, Reuters bannered “In Brazil’s Amazon a COVID 19 resurgence dashes Herd Immunity hopes”, and reported that, “The largest city in Brazil’s Amazon has closed bars and river beaches to contain a fresh surge of Corona Virus cases, a trend that may dash theories that Manaus was one of the world’s first places to reach collective, or Herd Immunity.”

However, the day prior, on May 2nd, America had 30,701 new cases. Brazil had 28,935. Norway had 210. India had 370,059. Sweden’s latest daily count (as of May 3rd) was 5,937 on April 29th, 15 times Norway’s 385 on that date. Sweden’s population is 1.9 times that of Norway. India’s daily count is soaring. Their population is four times America’s, but the number of new daily cases in India is twelve times America’s. Whereas India has had only one seventh as much Covid 19 intensity till now, India is soaring upwards to become ultimately, perhaps, even worse than America is on Covid 19 performance. And Brazil is already almost as bad as America, on Covid 19 performance, and will soon surpass America in Covid 19 failure.

There is no “Herd Immunity” against Covid 19, yet, anywhere. It’s just another Libertarian myth. But Libertarians still continue to believe it – they refuse to accept the data.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic versus Republican Economic Records, 1910 – 2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.