Herd mentality

In “Life-saving or lunacy?” (April 8) Prof. Yoram Lass’s proposal adds up to herd immunity based on mass exposure to the Covid19 virus.

The preponderance of world experts are of the opinion that the only reasonable way that herd immunity is to be achieved is via the use of a vaccine if and when it becomes available. As a senior citizen with three of the 4 the major risk factors involved, Lass’s proposal would be a death sentence for me and numerous others.

DR. SAMUEL DERSHOWITZ

Jerusalem

“If this is war, we must attack the enemy, without fear” (April 8) by Sylvan Adams, who is described as an Israeli entrepreneur and philanthropist, is based on grossly erroneous premises, distortion of the numbers (most glaringly the percentages of sick, hospitalized, and recovered patients – no mention is made of the dead), and a misunderstanding, misreading and incorrect analysis of the current and future situation.

His solution of “herd immunity,” which may be called “herd suicide or herd death” is imbecilic, and takes us back to the Black Death and plague solutions of the Middle Ages.

In Italy, the mayor of Bergamo, a town at the center of the pandemic storm near Milan, said that only 30% of the deaths that are caused by Covid-19 are being reported as such. There is an increase of deaths compared to previous years, but if the dead person has not been tested for COVID-19, then the increased deaths are not attributed to the virus.

In many non-Western countries, testing is almost non-existent. It is only reasonable to assume that the number of dead is far in excess by many multiples of the published numbers. If the numbers of dead are compared to the number of infection-free recovered, we see