Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 223 posts

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#61

Post by ehvatum »

minikites wrote: post #33
mr_cyborg wrote: post #28

I wanted to add that a lot of the people I know who are “vaccine hesitant” are just waiting a little longer to see how things go. I don’t see a whole lot of representation of folks who intend to get the vaccine this summer when I read publications and articles about it, but I would wager that there’s more people intending to get it but not quite yet than we think.

So in other words, people like that want to wait and see how it goes for all of the expendable people before they try it themselves, because they're the protagonist of reality.

I got the Pfizer vax, which like all available COVID vaccines in the US, is authorized for distribution on an emergency basis - because these vaccines have yet to be verified safe and effective by phase 3 studies.

Waiting until proper FDA approval does not require solipsism.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#62

Post by kickout »

MattGaiser wrote: post #59
kickout wrote: post #40

This story is also an example of the conflicting stories we get out of leaders? How it is possible we'll _never_ reach herd immunity? They were saying we needed that just last summer! That loss of trust in giving us correct/congruent information from leaders is absolutely hurting America right now

> How it is possible we'll _never_ reach herd immunity? It does not circulate sufficiently but neither is a critical mass of vaccinated people reached due to vaccine reluctance.

My impression is they are moving the goal posts and saying _no_ level of vaccination is 'good enough for herd immunity'

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#63

Post by dham »

don-code wrote: post #35

I'd love if someone broke down _reasons_ for vaccine hesitancy. It seems like the strategies we should develop for addressing them would be different, and that there shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all strategy, as we're trying to do today. So far, I personally have encountered the following viewpoints in my family and peer group (none of which I share) - in decreasing order of how much credence I'll give them: 1. I'm p…

I'm all for vaccines. I recommend everyone get the Covid vaccine. My wife has the Pfizer vaccine. All my children have their vaccines.

My vaccine hesitancy comes for myself only. My autoimmune diseases. I developed Hypothyrodism literally 3 months after Tetanus shot only to find out that overseas you only need one every 30 years but we push them every 10 years in the USA. I was in perfect health got a physical all labs were fine. I got my Tetanus shot at that physical. 3 months later I went in because I was feeling very weak. Got diagnosed. I even have the lab work to back up my claims. 8 years later I had thyroid cancer and my hypothyroidism was diagnosed as Hashimotos. Maybe it was coincidence.

Second thing. Got a flu shot 5 years later (after Tetanus) and developed Psoriasis about 4 months after.

I think that a very small percentage of population can develop autoimmune responses permanently from vaccines. It's just not studied enough and happens in such a small percentage it's hard to track and correlate. Also certain auto immune diseases lay dormant for some time. So someone could develop hypothyrodism after a vaccine but never know it for years.

All that being said, I just can't take that kind of risk for something that isn't that deadly to me. I'll just continue on my Peloton and playing basketball 3 times a week. Try to keep weight low and eat healthy.

My sibling works for Pfizer. I can't say what they do and they won't take the vaccine. I think their hesitancy comes from doctors overprescribing antibiotics for UTI infections in their teens. Now they have severe IBS and ulcers. I think the vaccine hesitancy is a general distrust in doctors. Science knows a lot more about gut health now.

We're both very educated and left leaning.

If Covid was super deadly or something I would be the first in line. I promise you. I'll have to roll the dice for now. If Johnson and Johnson comes back on market I might, and that's a big might take that one.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962945/

https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/extras/02art9340w...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10648110/#:~:text=Other%20au...).

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#64

Post by arcticbull »

thu2111 wrote: post #50
beisner wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an education problem. It's an ideology problem. A huge fraction of the country has basically lost all faith in public and academic institutions. In these polarized times, when many leaders that institution-skeptics listen to decided to make COVID a political issue in the ongoing culture war, listening to public health recommendations (including masking, vaccination) is akin to "letting the other side win". E…

I don't think it was "institution skeptics" who made COVID a political issue. How many months did it take before academics were claiming that anti-lockdown protests were dangerous and must not happen but BLM protests were to be encouraged, because "systemic racism" is a public health issue? Not many. How many other academics condemned this blatant politicization of science? Not enough. Lockdowns don't work: US states…

Lockdown worked fine in New Zealand it not? The thing is, it’s something you have to commit to. You can’t just half ass it.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#65

Post by edmundsauto »

kickout wrote: post #44
losvedir wrote: post #18

Ah, well in that case I guess it's a sure bet that we'll reach it. Betting against the experts hasn't been such a bad idea through this whole dismal ordeal. Let's hope, anyway, because that second shot is a doozy and I sure don't want to have to repeat that every year. I suspect, though, if this does become endemic, they'll tweak the dosage a bit of the vaccine, and it might be akin to only needing the first shot (wh…

I see you're getting downvoted (probably for the snark). But yea, the experts in this COVID ordeal have been less than accurate (or congruent even).

It’s almost as if the experts were learning as the situation developed in a modern pandemic from a novel virus during a hyper globalized era.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#66

Post by optimiz3 »

kickout wrote: post #40

This story is also an example of the conflicting stories we get out of leaders? How it is possible we'll _never_ reach herd immunity? They were saying we needed that just last summer! That loss of trust in giving us correct/congruent information from leaders is absolutely hurting America right now

Information about the virus and the virus itself has changed since last summer.

One adjusts approaches based on changing data. Being flexible is a positive trait.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#67

Post by mattm »

alibarber wrote: post #54

Honest question - I'm after good articles to read about this: Why is it that we have been able to eliminate things like Polio and Smallpox, yet there's doubt about COVID? They were both viruses, must have mutated, were fairly easily spread and it must have taken longer to vaccinate enough people given the advances in logistics and vaccine tech we now have. What's the fundamental difference?

My take would be that those diseases affect children while COVID does not. I think we would have seen pretty much everyone on board with COVID vaccines if COVID was severely crippling children.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#68

Post by passivate »

kossTKR wrote: post #14
lol768 wrote: post #2

> Polls show that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is still reluctant to be vaccinated. That number is expected to improve but probably not enough. “It is theoretically possible that we could get to about 90 percent vaccination coverage, but not super likely, I would say,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This is really poor, positive vaccine sentiment in…

I honestly think it's weird that more people aren't "sceptics", however stupid that word is in itself. I would gladly take the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine right this minute, but i also know of the terrible track records the pharmaindustry - there is so many shady examples to choose from it's incredible that anyone doubts how vulture-like that industry is, - also there was corruption the last time a pandemic hit: https://h…

I work in biotech (vaccines), so we have some overlap with pharma, and none of what you said resonates with me. Sorry, but you're applying a pretty broad brush to millions of hardworking people in this industry that is completely unwarranted. As an aside, nobody I know is going to refuse life saving medication because 'pharma industry is bad'.

The pharma industry is no different than any other industry. The vast majority of people are honest hardworking folks just doing their job, and you have a handful of assholes. As such, you have to look at things on a case by case basis. You can't reject the tech industry because Facebook did something bad. There are millions of criminals in the world, we don't reject humanity based on it. This is simply not a sustainable method of arriving at any sort of conclusion.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#69

Post by dang »

minikites wrote: post #33
mr_cyborg wrote: post #28

I wanted to add that a lot of the people I know who are “vaccine hesitant” are just waiting a little longer to see how things go. I don’t see a whole lot of representation of folks who intend to get the vaccine this summer when I read publications and articles about it, but I would wager that there’s more people intending to get it but not quite yet than we think.

So in other words, people like that want to wait and see how it goes for all of the expendable people before they try it themselves, because they're the protagonist of reality.

Would you please stop posting flamewar comments? We're trying for something other than that here, and this one is a noticeable step hellward.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've asked you this multiple times before. If you keep doing it we are going to have to ban you.

Re: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ from Covid Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

#70

Post by kickout »

edmundsauto wrote: post #65
kickout wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you're getting downvoted (probably for the snark). But yea, the experts in this COVID ordeal have been less than accurate (or congruent even).

It’s almost as if the experts were learning as the situation developed in a modern pandemic from a novel virus during a hyper globalized era.

But they refuse to go back or admit when they are wrong. They simply have been stubborn. It's killing their trust
Post reply on HN