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Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

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Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#141
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA is currently at ~8M infections/recovered CONFIRMED cases. The total number of cases is probably 5-10x that. I live in the Deep South, and honestly I suspect that our curves have fallen simply due to a "limited" herd immunity effect (i.e. the groups of people most likely to catch COVID have already done so in large enough numbers). I certainly haven't observed any significant change in behaviors since the July p…

Deaths are probably more instructive – just to get a ballpark number. If only because deaths are less likely to overlook too many people. If the IFR is around 1% we would expect around 1,000,000 deaths if one third of Americans have to be infected for herd immunity. So that would suggest the US is 20 percent of the way there. Given the haphazard way of calculating these numbers I would, however, put huge error bars a…

Our best estimate of IFR is closer to 0.6%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#142
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? 0-4 and 5-17 are definitely that high. The 18-45 demo is different, but there's a lot more heterogeneity in that population as well. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

I cannot fathom how your link could possibly support your contention that 0-4 and 5-17 are "definitely" a 99.99% survival rate (IFR of 0.01% or 1 fatality out of every 10,000 infections). I suspect you are misreading the table? Care to elaborate?

Taking the data from the linked table for say 35-44 year olds is 1,798 deaths out of ~43 million population bracket, excluding influenza cases. That’s a 99.9956% survival rate. Taking all covid-19 and influenza it’s still a 99.9903% survival rate.

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot fathom how your link could possibly support your contention that 0-4 and 5-17 are "definitely" a 99.99% survival rate (IFR of 0.01% or 1 fatality out of every 10,000 infections). I suspect you are misreading the table? Care to elaborate?

Taking the data from the linked table for say 35-44 year olds is 1,798 deaths out of ~43 million population bracket, excluding influenza cases. That’s a 99.9956% survival rate. Taking all covid-19 and influenza it’s still a 99.9903% survival rate.

Nope, you're not even close to calculating the survival rate correctly. The population of ~43 million is the entire population, not the set of people who were infected.

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not allow healthy people to inoculate with a reasonable dose of the virus so they can control the timing, and then self-quarantine? I would have done that months ago if it was allowed. Even if it only has a partial chance of conferring immunity, doing that would have helped fewer vulnerable people get sick, but instead public health authorities are still clinging to “informed consent” nonsense, as if turning the…

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like you're just independently inventing the concept of a vaccine.

Or a Pox Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party

Not that outrageous.

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not "some of the leading experts". https://www.wired.co.uk/article/great-barrington-declaration...

Wired? Seriously? I don’t even trust them for tech news. Here are the authors. They are well credentialed Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations. Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vac…

And I'm sure at some point one of them is going to publish an epidemiological model in support of their position, and not a press release. Until then, they're not even at Wired's level.

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wired? Seriously? I don’t even trust them for tech news. Here are the authors. They are well credentialed Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring of infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations. Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vac…

And I'm sure at some point one of them is going to publish an epidemiological model in support of their position, and not a press release. Until then, they're not even at Wired's level.

Here's a published epidemiological model that supports Kulldorff, Gupta, and Bhattacharya position. Though the author is not one of them. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/peerReview?id=10.1...

One of the authors' twitter thread with the paper's summary: https://twitter.com/WesPegden/status/1288140129677332482

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking the data from the linked table for say 35-44 year olds is 1,798 deaths out of ~43 million population bracket, excluding influenza cases. That’s a 99.9956% survival rate. Taking all covid-19 and influenza it’s still a 99.9903% survival rate.

Nope, you're not even close to calculating the survival rate correctly. The population of ~43 million is the entire population, not the set of people who were infected.

Schucks, you’re right, I didn’t read the fine print on the CDC site. Still it’s not as far off as that sort of error would seem to indicate.

According to this Sep 2020 article on reason.com (1) they quote CDC numbers of a 99.98 survival rate (0.02% IFR) for 20-to-49-year-olds. Or a 99.997% survival rate (0.003 IFR) percent among people 19 or less.

1: https://www.google.com/amp/s/reason.com/2020/09/29/the-lates...

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like you're just independently inventing the concept of a vaccine.

Or a Pox Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party Not that outrageous.

Who's stopping you from doing that? Pretty much all the restrictions are on the honor system so if you think that's a good idea go ahead.

Re: Updating Herd Immunity Models for the US: Implications for the Covid-19 Response

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't decide whether to use the term cutlery (mainly UK) or silverware (mainly US). They're both inaccurate, especially when asking for plastic/disposable versions.

'Utensils' seems accurate, although imprecise.

This is actually the one I've always jumped to (in the US). "Silverware" and "cutlery" have always had a fancy restaurant vibe, rather than a be a word for an everyday object.
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