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

nytimes.com

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

#131

Post by rovolo »

CountDrewku wrote: post #89
arcticbull wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You realize they achieved this by effectively locking down their borders right? Now, imagine the response if Trump had suggested this. Actually, you don't even need to imagine it: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-borders_n_5...

That article is from 2020-03-12. By that day, we had a total of 40 deaths and 1.5k confirmed cases. It was pretty obviously spreading within the US at that point, and just closing the borders wasn't going to stop it. Headlines for context:

> Trump Appears More Concerned With Closing Borders Than Testing For Coronavirus

> The president has characterized the pandemic as a “foreign virus” and suggested that banning people from other countries is key to fixing the outbreak at home.

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

#132

Post by krona »

arcticbull wrote: post #115
krona wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know what the long term effects of either the virus or the vaccine are on a human. Hell we can't possibly even have data on what the long term effects are on humans. It doesn't matter how many people have been exposed.

Luckily we know how vaccines work. There’s nothing particularly new about this one. Vaccines arent magic; you trigger an immune response by getting a part of the virus into your body. It’s a pretty understood process. So let me ask you instead, how many years would make you feel comfortable? Five? 10? 50? I prefer to rely on the wealth of existing information, and knowing the cost of inaction is much greater than act…

> How many years would make you feel comfortable? Five? 10? 50?

How long do you plan on living?

To give a vaccine to say, an 8 year old child, with no health concerns and excellent natural immunity to a disease (better than say, for seasonal flu), then it stands to reason that you would need so much data to show that the absolute risk reduction was greater than 0 (and not below 0), that the question is barely even worth considering; why not just wait until the child reaches a suitable age, at which point we'd already have the data?

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

#133

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #71
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?

Polio and Smallpox are terrible diseases, causing terrible deformities or scarring, while COVID is essentially a slightly more dangerous flu.

"Slightly" is incredibly wrong. Estimates are that it's around 10x as deadly, and that's only counting death, and not the permanent lung damage some survivors are experiencing.

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

#134

Post by kickout »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #117
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

Downvoted. I'd like to snuff out this notion that changing your story after receiving new information is a negative thing. Research, especially on something like a new virus, takes time. We know more about the virus now than we did a year ago, so of course predictions and recommendations are going to change. That is not weakness, that is science.

Agree that updating your story/viewpoint with new information is a good trait to have. However, the updating appears to be one-sided (more restrictive/slower re-opening etc.). Why do vaccinated people still need to wear masks and why are outdoor activities being curtained when the evidence is clear they are low risk. Again, the updating of information _appears_ to be one-sided

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

#135

Post by 2lwxxtj »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #130
2lwxxtj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the US rightly don't trust the pharmaceutical industry or the government. They may not be able to pinpoint why, but when they look around they see that every year the people around them are more obese and have more chronic health conditions. They may not be able to tie those things together consciously, but it leaves the powerful subconscious feeling that the government and pharmaceutical industries do not…

I do think it's a bit ironic to choose not to get a vaccine because you don't trust Big Pharma. Because the alternative to the vaccine is putting yourself at risk for a deadly virus which can cost a lot of money to treat, which would give more money to Big Pharma. Generally, vaccines aren't in the best interests of pharmaceutical companies.

It's not about not wanting to give money to them, it's about not wanting their products injected in to your body. The vast majority of people that get infected with the coronavirus do not get any pharmaceuticals put in to them whatsoever.

>Generally, vaccines aren't in the best interests of pharmaceutical companies.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. As far as I know, no one has done any long term (10+ year) studies to determine whether people that get vaccines end up using more pharmaceuticals than people that don't get vaccines.

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

#136

Post by jgwil2 »

auiya wrote: post #125
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…

> It's not an education problem. It's an ideology problem. Ideology is formed via education

I think the OP was asking if it's an education problem as in, do people just not understand what a vaccine is or how it works? But that's not the issue really. The information is out there; people are just choosing to ignore it or cling to "alternative facts" for some as yet poorly understood reason.

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

#137

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

dham wrote: post #63
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 la…

> UTI infections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

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

#138

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

kickout wrote: post #70
edmundsauto wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You sure about that?

From what I've seen, the experts have gladly admitted they were wrong.

It's the politicians who refuse to go back.

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

#139

Post by kickout »

ashtonbaker wrote: post #80
kickout wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"They" don't set the goalposts - reality does. Also, they are not saying that no level of vaccination is good enough - they are saying that the level of vaccination needed is dependent on a variety of factors, and that level is becoming increasingly difficult to reach due to variants and vaccine hesitancy. From the article: > Early on, the target herd immunity threshold was estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of t…

when did transmissibility become a defining metric? There are more transmissible pathogens (colds, flu), but we don't change society for those. I was told that mortality was the defining metric (and thus the reason for the restrictions, to save lives), so if B.1.1.7 is less lethal, why would the transmissibility play in?

Also why isn't immunization from natural infection counting? I've seen to reason to _discount_ it; it just seems they are looking for ways to juke the stats

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

#140

Post by kickout »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #138
kickout wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You sure about that? From what I've seen, the experts have gladly admitted they were wrong. It's the politicians who refuse to go back.

I mean yes I am sure, lol. Kids (IMO) and schools should've been opened and outdoor activities (non-mass events) should be restriction-free _everywhere_ as the risks associated to those populations or activities are vanishingly small. But several states still have onerous (IMO) restrictions.
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