Ron DeSantis is Wrong

There are all sorts of wacky and wack-job ideas out there. Folks who say they want to go outside because the only way they can develop immunity to the virus is to be exposed to the virus are sort of half right. Yes, if you get the virus and recover, the current thinking is that you won't get it a second time, at least not in the current virus season. But Covid19 is a virus so it is constantly mutating, shape shifting into a different version of itself so being immune to the virus you fall prey to today in no way makes you immune to the virus it becomes when it mutates tomorrow. As an example, just because you had the flu last year doesn't mean that you cannot get the flu this year because that shape shifting flu virus has already changed which is why flu vaccines are constantly being updated to address the new variety. In some but not all cases, having had a virus can make your next encounter less difficult to overcome but it won't mean that you don't get sick at all.

To top that off, this virus, Covid19, is a new virus so there is very little information about it. Obviously that complicates matters because most of what is "known" about the virus is anecdotal rather than scientific, further complicated by a fair amount of distrust about the anecdotes that are available. Some reports out of China indicate that some people who definitely had the virus back in January have already been reinfected in the spring. That may be true or it may be that the virus has already mutated into a different version or it may all be rumor rather than fact. "It is clear that immune responses are being mounted against Covid-19 in infected people,” says virologist Mike Skinner of Imperial College London. “And the antibodies created by that response will provide protection against future infections – but we should note that it is unlikely this protection will be for life.” Instead, most virologists believe that immunity against Covid-19 will last only a year or two. “That is in line with other coronaviruses that infect humans,” says Skinner."

Ron DeSantis said that children should go back to school. His stated reason for this alarming idea is that children don't die from this disease, rarely get the disease,  and even if they do get sick they recover and are therefore immune for the future. Well as I attempted to explain above, an immunity to a virus is pretty short-lived because the virus changes pretty quickly. One of the other major flaws in DeSantis' argument is that even if it were true that children do not get sick and do not die from the Covid19 virus (which it is demonstrably not), if they go to school, get covered with the virus through exposure to a carrier, then they obviously bring the virus home to their families, their neighborhood, their bus driver, their crossing guard, etc.

Now Florida is one state that would absolutely be devastated by widespread contagion of this virus simply because it has a much higher than average age for residents. While DeSantis is entirely wrong that children are immune, old people are not just more susceptible but more likely to suffer greater consequences and die. The demographic shift that a large scale die off of Florida's elderly population would cause would certainly upend any political predictions or plans.

There will always be snake oil salesmen and hucksters. Most politicians are both.