It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Plenty of scientist do not support the theory that a second wave is inevitable.
We're past the stage of talking about a future second wave - we're already in it.
Tests are not as accurate as they should be, and are showing many false positives. Virus may be getting weaker, people may have some immunity given from other Coronavirus’s they have been previously exposed to and immunity is more complex than just a person having antibodies. So I think the R rate is not an accurate measure, because the data it uses is not accurate.
The R rate is all that matters - if it's >1 then it will run unchecked, under 1 and it's under control. And although the nature of sampling means that we will never know it perfectly, we can estimate it closely enough - say within 25% or so - to make sensible decisions based on it. Most of the factors you mention either aren't relevant or drop out on both sides of the equation, but they sound like plausible FUD to those who aren't familiar with the science.
For instance say that last week there were really 100 people infected in a town and that this week there are really 200 people infected. So (to a first approximation as infection cycle is not exactly a week) R = 200/100= 2.
Let's say that for various reasons - false negatives, asymptomatic infections etc - you only detect 50% of the actual infections. That means you only see 50 infections last week and 100 infections this week. So you calculate R as 100/50 = 2 - it doesn't matter that you're not testing all the infections, you still get the right value for R.
Same the other way if you're getting false positives. So it doesn't matter that your testing is inaccurate, as long as it's consistently inaccurate (and yes, the people who calculate these things are aware of more testing happening now, and can adjust for it).
But the accuracy of tests makes for a great talking point for people who don't know what they're talking about.
I believe we lost our chance of gaining a good degree of herd immunity...Now we go into winter in a very bad position in every aspect.
The reason we're in such a bad position is precisely because our leaders went for herd immunity as their primary strategy.
The reason SARS and MERS and others didn't become pandemics is because they were stamped out by aggressive quarantining, mask-wearing etc in Asian countries - they didn't just wait for herd immunity. The people who are such fans of the disaster in Sweden don't talk about Taiwan so much, which went hard from the start, with testing for incoming travellers in January, have had only a handful of cases of community transmission and have an economy that's pretty much back to normal now. Just goes to show, you have to solve the health crisis before you have a chance of solving the economic crisis.
There is no guarantee of an effective vaccine, which will mean the virus will have to run it’s course anyway.
That's one thing that's looking reasonably hopeful, not least because of the sheer number of vaccines currently under test.
This FT article gives an overview, and
this amazing Twitter thread gives more detail on the individual technologies, from a professor at Mt Sinai who recently wrote
a review of them for Nature (not yet published). He counts 180 vaccines in development, of which 40 are in clinical trials and 10 are in Phase III trials - an amazing number given that it's just over 9 months since the virus was identified.
If anything he's a bit more worried about supplies of syringes etc to deliver them than the vaccines themselves. A few of his take-homes :
Perhaps the biggest thing to consider is that one vaccine may not fit all. In particular, a vaccine that works well for people of working age may give severe side-effects in the strong immune systems of kids, but may not be enough (or at least need a booster) in the elderly.
Also the elderly have been exposed to a lot more viruses over their lifetime and so are more likely to have some cross-reaction against some of the non-SARS2 viruses used as vectors to deliver DNA/RNA in some vaccines. Which means those vaccines tend not to work so well in the elderly.
Because vaccines are designed to stimulate the immune system, some of them do provoke some side-effects that are typical of the immune system doing its thing - fever, headache, soreness etc. One of the Chinese vaccines in particular (CanSino Biologics) has seen 9% of those with a high dose getting significant side-effects like that. But even that's OK - a bit miserable for the 9%, but a whole heap better than Covid.
But don't be surprised to see stories in coming months, in the press and less-informed parts of social media, about vaccines not working in the elderly or causing side-effects - these things are normal and are a failure of degree not total failures, they should be able to either tweak doses for different groups of patients, or just switch to another vaccine for that group.
On the other hand, the FT piece shows that one thing HMG has done well is on getting the orders in for vaccines - we have ordered over 5 doses per person split over 6 different technologies. I imagine it helps that it's a low-profile thing that the adults have been able to get on with quietly, without too much interference from Downing St worried about tomorrow's headlines. But it also just reflects the fact that vaccines are an area where the UK has a world-class industry in, whereas for instance we don't have a particularly big testing industry (which is why Germany has been so good at testing).
