EvolutionMedicine clinical applications and course materials in evolutionary medicine – by Joe Alcock MD Virulence evolution and herd immunity By Joe Alcock on June 2, 2020 • ( Leave a comment ) The billionaire hedge fund manager Ricky Sandler says we should disregard public health professionals and encourage people to get infected with COVID-19 so that the population can have “so called” herd immunity. He and others argue we should throw caution – and our face masks – to the wind and promote infections in younger people. Sandler says that he “envisions young and healthy people attending ‘virus relief concerts’ in hopes of getting the virus.” I can guarantee that Sandler hasn’t given any thought to the evolution of virulence, let alone gathered any knowledge on public health basics. Paul Ewald, the author of the book “ The Evolution of Infectious Disease ” pointed out that transmission characteristics can ...