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Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

nature.com

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Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#31

Post by heavyset_go »

ping_pong wrote: post #18

First and foremost SARS-CoV-2 will never go away because it infects animals. Because it is so infectious, it will go through an entire herd or farm within days and eventually cause mutations and jump back to humans. So it will never go away and we need to prepare for it. The main goal is to make it survivable, ie. akin to the flu, and not cause hospitals to get overrun like we have seen so many times around the world…

> Because it is so infectious, it will go through an entire herd or farm within days and eventually cause mutations and jump back to humans. So it will never go away and we need to prepare for it.

This is also one of the main mechanisms for antibiotic resistance in bacteria that infect humans[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance#Food_...

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#32

Post by caturopath »

Trasmatta wrote: post #6
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #2

I am truly baffled why the epidemiology community ever thought herd immunity will work. There is ample evidence that it is not a panacea. e.g. influenzae, hepatitis, meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, yellow fever.

Did the epidemiology community ever think that? I remember as early as March of last year, epidemiologists saying that herd immunity was not the way forward, and that this would likely become endemic. It seemed to mostly be reporters and politicians who pushed the herd immunity angle.

It's really difficult to tell from the sidelines the difference between Cassandras and the Trelawneys. Is there a concrete way to get the pulse of the epidemiologists over time?

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#33

Post by sandworm101 »

>> "Israel began vaccinating its citizens in December 2020 [...] Now the problem is that young people don’t want to get their shots,” Aran says, so local authorities are enticing them with things such as free pizza and beer.

Forget the pizza. I would pay good money for a vaccination but in my area (Canada) vaccination is still only open to the elderly. At work I am doing double shifts to cover for all the people who are "working from home". I haven't seen my parents or other extended family in over a year. It has been six months since I've eaten in a sit-down restaurant. I've had to cut my own hair since christmas. If the kids in Israel aren't accepting the vaccine then ship those does to me and I'll give them to people who actually want this all to end.

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#34

Post by Uehreka »

Spivak wrote: post #11
sadmann1 wrote: post #3

Alright what's the way forward then

Everyone or as many 9’s as possible getting vaccinated and regular testing of anyone who can’t get the vaccine. Like it doesn’t have to be obnoxious but people who can’t get the vaccine should get tested when any symptoms show. It’s gonna be like the flu, but ya know deadlier, where the name of the game is control and stamping out outbreaks aggressively.

My gut feeling is that it would take strong and probably obnoxious enforcement to get us to one 9, we probably can’t even get two 9s (as in 99%, since some people think that means 99.99%) due to the number of people medically ineligible. And all that’s after approving any vaccine for kids, which we haven’t done yet.

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#35

Post by AndrewBissell »

bmitc wrote: post #23
Trasmatta wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the epidemiology community ever think that? I remember as early as March of last year, epidemiologists saying that herd immunity was not the way forward, and that this would likely become endemic. It seemed to mostly be reporters and politicians who pushed the herd immunity angle.

It was also a fair amount of HNers pushing the herd immunity thing as well.

I don't want to necessarily attribute it to "epidemiologists" but there has been a pretty clear line from policymakers since about three weeks into the lockdowns (which was as long as we were initially told they would need to last to "flatten the curve") that we needed to stay locked down, keep wearing masks and distancing etc. until vaccines could be given to enough people to effectively end Covid transmission. There's a whole movement of prominent policy & medical leading lights that you can find with the #ZeroCovid hashtag on Twitter pushing this line.

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#37

Post by heavyset_go »

corty wrote: post #28
sadmann1 wrote: post #3

Alright what's the way forward then

Quite the same as if the vaccinations were causing herd immunity: Everyone who wants a shot will get one. Everyone on the vulnerable list should think really hard and really get a shot. The rest can suffer of their own free will. Or: make vaccinations mandatory if you want to protect those who cannot get a shot for health reasons. Remember, the reason is vaccination hesitancy or refusal. A perfect example of antisoci…

> Or: make vaccinations mandatory if you want to protect those who cannot get a shot for health reasons.

To put this one in perspective, we already make vaccinations mandatory for public school attendance, and colleges go one step further and require vaccinations for attendance, too.

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#38

Post by corty »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #2

I am truly baffled why the epidemiology community ever thought herd immunity will work. There is ample evidence that it is not a panacea. e.g. influenzae, hepatitis, meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, yellow fever.

Well, the pox, diphteria and polio are gone or almost gone due to vaccinations, at one point or the other we had herd immunity with those. Its just that some small pockets of society refused to vaccinate and played incubators, so the rest of us wouldn't miss all the "fun"...

Quite the same for all the other diseases you enumerated, just that we never managed to get herd immunity due to antivaxxers ruining it.

Re: Covid herd immunity is probably impossible

#39

Post by AtlasBarfed »

"vaccine hesitancy"

Is that anti-vaxxers / laziness?

Also, the US still has a very poorly designed system to promote herd immunity. Basically, you are charging people to contribute to herd immunity, rather than paying people to contribute to herd immunity.

COVID isn't even some "perfect bug" that maximizes the strategic/policy failures of US healthcare and preys on our self-interest. It's a very very mild pandemic compared to 20-40% death rate pandemics of yore. Maybe a death rate at those levels would spur "healthcare consumer self-interest" to vaccinate... but if there was an outright 3% death rate, would people's behavior change? 5%? 10%?

And for god sakes, stop letting perfect be the enemy of good. "Herd Immunity" isn't necessarily 100% resistance. We can achieve a great reduction with vaccinations even if it isn't perfect.

Edit: I was reading that I would be charged a 40-100$ administration fee. I guess that is being charged back to the government.

... this time.

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