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Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

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Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#31

Post by timr »

danfo wrote: post #25

> Herd immunity has been well-documented in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where researchers in the Lancet reported the prevalence of prior Covid-19 infection to be 76%, resulting in a significant slowing of the infection. What, the linked study proves the opposite. A massive amount of death in Manaus in 2021, despite 'herd immunity' measured in October 2020. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-…

> What, the linked study proves the opposite. A massive amount of death in Manaus in 2021, despite 'herd immunity' measured in October 2020.

That is not a study. It is an editorial. It "proves" nothing, and instead advances a few alternative theories that might explain the discrepancy. However, it is not a complex situation. The following quote from the editorial is consistent with my personal belief after reading the original paper [1] that made the herd immunity claim:

"The 76% estimate of past infection might have been biased upwards due to adjustments to the observed 52·5% (95% CI 47·6–57·5) seroprevalence in June, 2020, to account for antibody waning."

This is true, but it understates the extent of the authors "adjustments". If you look at the original paper (Figure 2; linked below), they adjusted the raw data upward by a factor of about 3x. It is an...aggressive...modification to the raw data.

The parsimonious explanation for what is being observed in Manaus is that the Science paper claiming herd immunity was wrong. The authors of this Lancet editorial go to great lengths to advance alternative explanations involving "variants", but these are all unfounded, convoluted alternatives. The simplest explanation is that the original paper was wrong.

[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6526/288

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#32

Post by cheph »

berdario wrote: post #16

I really want to see positive news, and the vaccination rollout (despite how uneven it is) is definitely positive. But the focus on herd immunity, if conflated with immunity after infection, is misleading: Look at what's happening in Manaus: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 The news there are definitely sobering :( Unfortunately, the multiplication of strains of covid19 was inevitable, due to the decision of…

> Manaus shows that pursuing herd immunity through natural infection is not a guarantee.

Not a guarantee of what? Are we suggesting that we have a virus here that, unlike every previous virus, we can only reach herd immunity for with a vaccine?

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#33

Post by carlmr »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #28
berdario wrote: post #16

I really want to see positive news, and the vaccination rollout (despite how uneven it is) is definitely positive. But the focus on herd immunity, if conflated with immunity after infection, is misleading: Look at what's happening in Manaus: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 The news there are definitely sobering :( Unfortunately, the multiplication of strains of covid19 was inevitable, due to the decision of…

AFAICS this isn’t talked about enough! If lockdowns were taken seriously from the start, it would had prevented going wild and risking new strains. But here we are

>If lockdowns were taken seriously from the start, it would had prevented going wild and risking new strains.

I don't think a strategy that needs every country on earth to cooperate this tightly ever had a chance to work.

Most countries aren't the first world, most countries don't have the resources to test and quarantine properly, most countries can't afford lockdowns.

On top of that a lot of countries have much worse disease to deal with, Malaria for example, for them this is just one of many, and not such a terrible one.

There will be mutations, this will come back a few times, maybe it becomes milder on its own, but thinking you can keep it from mutating is Quixotic.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#34

Post by cheph »

This "pandemic" has given me permanent damage to hips, back and knees, without once having COVID, or ever meeting someone who has had COVID, or meeting someone who knows someone who has had COVID. I only know one person that knows a person who had COVID, and that person is on the other side of the planet.

I would much rather have had COVID. COVID lasts some weeks, maybe months with long COVID, I have damage for the rest of my life.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#35

Post by reissbaker »

cheph wrote: post #32
berdario wrote: post #16

I really want to see positive news, and the vaccination rollout (despite how uneven it is) is definitely positive. But the focus on herd immunity, if conflated with immunity after infection, is misleading: Look at what's happening in Manaus: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 The news there are definitely sobering :( Unfortunately, the multiplication of strains of covid19 was inevitable, due to the decision of…

> Manaus shows that pursuing herd immunity through natural infection is not a guarantee. Not a guarantee of what? Are we suggesting that we have a virus here that, unlike every previous virus, we can only reach herd immunity for with a vaccine?

> Unlike every previous virus

Have we reached "herd immunity" for syphilis? Herpes? Was smallpox eradicated via "herd immunity" that wasn't reached via a vaccine? Polio?

It is extremely common for viruses to not be eradicated unless there is a vaccine. Even vaccines are not guaranteed to be enough, e.g. with most influenza strains, although flu vaccines have managed to keep the death toll low enough for us to move on with our lives.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#36

Post by marcodiego »

danfo wrote: post #25

> Herd immunity has been well-documented in the Brazilian city of Manaus, where researchers in the Lancet reported the prevalence of prior Covid-19 infection to be 76%, resulting in a significant slowing of the infection. What, the linked study proves the opposite. A massive amount of death in Manaus in 2021, despite 'herd immunity' measured in October 2020. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-…

The only thing we can learn from Manaus is that waiting for herd immunity is a very bad idea.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#37

Post by Gibbon1 »

rawfan wrote: post #13

The author, Marty Makary, is a surgon. He does not have any expertise regarding viruses or epidemiology. He's completely ignoring all other reasons why infection might go down, the most important one being effective countermeasures, like wearing masks and social distancing. He's also ignoring that the case rates are stagnating due to the British variant. Germany is in that phase now. Cases of the British variant are…

Part of my current out of my butt theory why cases are going down is all the dummy's have partial herd immunity. The reasoning is simple. If you listen to what people that actually know what they are talking about they say in the US total cases are about 20%.

Lets consider Gallant. Gallant does all the things to stay safe. Is the infection rate among Gallants 20%? Hell no. It's probably a 1/3 that or 6-7%.

Consider Goofus. Goofus is a dummy. He does nothing to protect himself. And hangs out with other Goofus's. Is the infection rate among Goofus's 20%? No, it's probably 3-4 times higher. Or 60-80%.

60-80% means the Goofus's have herd immunity. 6-7% infection rate means Gallants don't.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#38

Post by sneak »

ganafagol wrote: post #12

Note that we still don't have much data on whether and by how much vaccinations do reduce transmission. The objective of the vaccines was to minimize serious cases. But transmissions are a different story. It could easily be that the vaccine prevents serious cases in 95% of people but transmission is not impacted significantly. We just don't know yet. Why is this relevant? Because the whole concept of "herd immunity"…

A side question: the vaccines have been out for months. Why is there no data on whether or not they affect transmission?

That seems like something that could be figured out within a week or two of the vaccine being finalized.

I have been worrying that the now all too familiar "we still don't know if the vaccine prevents transmission" is just a stand in for saying "it doesn't". Every additional week makes me less hopeful.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#39

Post by reissbaker »

ganafagol wrote: post #12

Note that we still don't have much data on whether and by how much vaccinations do reduce transmission. The objective of the vaccines was to minimize serious cases. But transmissions are a different story. It could easily be that the vaccine prevents serious cases in 95% of people but transmission is not impacted significantly. We just don't know yet. Why is this relevant? Because the whole concept of "herd immunity"…

This is no longer true. We do have data that the vaccines reduce transmission, thanks to Israel's mass vaccination program: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-israel-va...

The margin of reduced transmission is very close to the margin of reduced symptoms: 90% reduction in asymptomatic transmission, and 93% reduction for symptomatic transmission.

The study is only on Pfizer's vaccines, but I would expect Moderna's to perform similarly, since they're both MRNA vaccines targeting the spike protein and they have similar effectiveness at reducing symptoms.

Re: Opinion: We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April

#40

Post by logicchains »

tsimionescu wrote: post #26
threr234324 wrote: post #18

I wonder if Humanity will shut itself out of existence if we start counting every single pathology on that affects Humans on big banners and "social-media-fy" it. I mean, there were 3x more deaths by overdose in SF than by Covid. There are 2x more deaths in India by TB, and a lot more from malnutrition and poverty. Why are the Americans doing this propaganda op ? Ionnidis' latest paper even points to lockdowns not be…

Again this idiotic discourse that doesn't understand that letting a pandemic spread unchecked across the world has huge risks even beyond the obvious death toll. Covid19, even with the current measures, has killed more people than TB worldwide in 2020. Those deaths are often in addition to those killed by TB, overdose, and most other diseases you care to pick. It has let countless other people with chronic symptoms o…

>It has let countless other people with chronic symptoms of varying severity, possibly for the rest of their lives.

This is complete FUD with as-of-yet no scientific support. The lifetime effects of poverty and depression, in contrast, are quite well-studied and there's strong evidence that even a single year of unemployment can have a significant negative impact on lifetime health outcomes.

>Covid19, even with the current measures, has killed more people than TB worldwide in 2020. Those deaths are often in addition to those killed by TB, overdose, and most other diseases you care to pick

The vast-majority of these people were on death's door already, whereas the people taken by overdoses and depression are in the prime of their lives.

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