Coronavirus 2019-nCoV

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Thank you for confirming what you implied is what you implied. Once again, Covid-19 doesn't have to be eradicated for us to have herd immunity. I don't think you meant to imply that, but taken to it's logical conclusion, that's what you are implying.

It's sufficient that R_t fall below 1.0 and stay there. The US may well be very, very close to having Covid-19's R_t dip below 1.0.

And like people with the flu, there's a decent chance you get nice durable immunity over many years if you are unfortunate enough to have a case of the Rona. Unlike Fauci's claim of fizzling out at 6 months, US DoD research has shown it's at least 12 months, and that was the limit of the prior infection they could test -- it could be much longer.

You must still be confused.

Coming at me on logical tangents is a mistake.

I will now call you Mr. Herd.

No, Covid-19 doesn't have to be eradicated, but there has to be a stability in community immunity (at an "effective level") which as of this point in time, has not been demonstrated. In fact, exactly the opposite has been demonstrated.

Do you ever read the quotes that I post? I mean, it's in black and white from some of the foremost infectious disease experts in our country. :(

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Thank you for confirming what you implied is what you implied. Once again, Covid-19 doesn't have to be eradicated for us to have herd immunity. I don't think you meant to imply that, but taken to it's logical conclusion, that's what you are implying.

It's sufficient that R_t fall below 1.0 and stay there. The US may well be very, very close to having Covid-19's R_t dip below 1.0.

And like people with the flu, there's a decent chance you get nice durable immunity over many years if you are unfortunate enough to have a case of the Rona. Unlike Fauci's claim of fizzling out at 6 months, US DoD research has shown it's at least 12 months, and that was the limit of the prior infection they could test -- it could be much longer.

"And like people with the flu..."

You should stop right there.

Back to the drawing board!

[wufan]

The chance of death due to Covid is relatively low for most populations.

Cloth masks don’t prevent the spread of Covid.

There is a vaccine for those that want it.

There is nothing further the gov can do except take away your freedoms.

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https://whyy.org/articles/what-immunity-did-having-covid-19-give-me-do-i-still-need-a-vaccine/

What immunity did having COVID-19 give me? Do I still need a vaccine?

Though protection is decent for those who have previously had COVID-19, health experts say it is not as strong as when people get vaccinated.

“So that’s why there is that recommendation that despite having had COVID before, for full protection the vaccination is the best way to go,” said Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director for infection prevention at Johns Hopkins.

A prior infection offers protection in the range of 80%, compared to about 95% for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, said Dr. John Wherry, director of the Institute for Immunology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. That means about 15 to 20 out of every 100 people who have previously had COVID-19 could get reinfected, while 5 out of every 100 people who got an mRNA vaccine might get infected.

People with more severe infections appear to have stronger antibody responses than those who had milder or asymptomatic infections, Maragakis said. In addition, she said, the status of a person’s immune system can also dictate the quantity of antibodies and the quality of their antibody response. For example, immunosuppressed people might not mount an antibody response after being infected with COVID-19 or after getting vaccinated.

Lab studies suggest that protection following a case of COVID-19 begins to wane slightly after about three months, but can last for up to 10 months, although there’s a range to that, Wherry said.

The concern, though, is that “the more the virus is allowed to circulate, the more variants may emerge and we may see a time that a variant escapes the currently available vaccine. And at that point, we would have to modify the vaccines and re-vaccinate people against the new variant,” Maragakis said.

Researchers can study the effectiveness of a previous infection against variants by taking antibodies from people who have had COVID-19 and testing their ability to neutralize the different variants in the laboratory.

Antibodies generated from natural infection and vaccination do respond to the delta variant reasonably well. It’s actually the beta variant, first identified in late 2020 in South Africa, that antibodies have had trouble neutralizing, Wherry said. The concern about the delta variant, though, is that the amount of virus that gets transmitted is much higher, making it more infectious.

“So let’s say that you needed a certain amount of antibodies to prevent a thousand viral particles from starting to infect your upper respiratory tract. So you’d be protected if all that’s been transmitted is a thousand particles,” Wherry said. “With the delta variant, we know that people are harboring a thousand-fold higher amounts of virus in their nasal passages when they get infected. So now you might be not transmitting a thousand viral particles, but actually a million viral particles, and you can overwhelm the antibody responses there.

“And so what that means,” Wherry added, “is that even if you’ve had the vaccine, even if you previously had COVID, even if you’re hearing that the vaccines are still working against delta, we need to be careful because delta is actually giving off more viral particles, meaning that all of us may still be, to some extent, a little bit susceptible.”

“Studies have shown us that the immune response is more vigorous, you have higher levels of antibodies, and more neutralizing antibodies that stay around for a longer period of time after vaccination as opposed to natural infection,” Maragakis said.

Most importantly, getting vaccinated will provide better protection against variants.

“We also have the variants that are now circulating and are clearly causing second infections in those who have had the infection before, and even in some cases, breakthrough infections for people who are vaccinated,” Maragakis said. “So to give yourself the best chance to fight off the virus, vaccination is definitely the answer.”

I hope Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director for infection prevention at Johns Hopkins, was able to provide some more clarity on the issues we face.

I would highly recommend all in here to read the entire article. It is filled with facts and information you can build a knowledge base from that will serve you well into the future.

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The chance of death due to Covid is relatively low for most populations.

Cloth masks don’t prevent the spread of Covid.

There is a vaccine for those that want it.

There is nothing further the gov can do except take away your freedoms.

1) Government can enforce vaccine mandates on the public at large just like how they do with children in public education.

2) Let's start handing out some free N95's at store entrances for the unvaccinated instead of the panty liners then.

3) The government isn't coming for you bro. They want you free and earning a living so they can tax you to build aircraft carriers.

Aaaaand say it with me class:

Death isn't the only bad outcome w/ Covid-19.

https://www.wibw.com/2021/08/11/topeka-mayor-get-pacemaker-after-covid-19-damages-heart/

[wufan]

1) Government can enforce vaccine mandates on the public at large just like how they do with children in public education.

2) Let's start handing out some free N95's at store entrances for the unvaccinated instead of the panty liners then.

3) The government isn't coming for you bro. They want you free and earning a living so they can tax you to build aircraft carriers.

Aaaaand say it with me class:

Death isn't the only bad outcome w/ Covid-19.

https://www.wibw.com/2021/08/11/tope...damages-heart/

**** the government

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible

Even with vaccination efforts in full force, the theoretical threshold for vanquishing COVID-19 looks to be out of reach.

As COVID-19 vaccination rates pick up around the world, people have reasonably begun to ask: how much longer will this pandemic last? It’s an issue surrounded with uncertainties. But the once-popular idea that enough people will eventually gain immunity to SARS-CoV-2 to block most transmission — a ‘herd-immunity threshold’ — is starting to look unlikely.

That threshold is generally achievable only with high vaccination rates, and many scientists had thought that once people started being immunized en masse, herd immunity would permit society to return to normal. Most estimates had placed the threshold at 60–70% of the population gaining immunity, either through vaccinations or past exposure to the virus. But as the pandemic enters its second year, the thinking has begun to shift. In February, independent data scientist Youyang Gu changed the name of his popular COVID-19 forecasting model from ‘Path to Herd Immunity’ to ‘Path to Normality’. He said that reaching a herd-immunity threshold was looking unlikely because of factors such as vaccine hesitancy, the emergence of new variants and the delayed arrival of vaccinations for children.

Gu is a data scientist, but his thinking aligns with that of many in the epidemiology community. “We’re moving away from the idea that we’ll hit the herd-immunity threshold and then the pandemic will go away for good,” says epidemiologist Lauren Ancel Meyers, executive director of the University of Texas at Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. This shift reflects the complexities and challenges of the pandemic, and shouldn’t overshadow the fact that vaccination is helping. “The vaccine will mean that the virus will start to dissipate on its own,” Meyers says. But as new variants arise and immunity from infections potentially wanes, “we may find ourselves months or a year down the road still battling the threat, and having to deal with future surges”.

Long-term prospects for the pandemic probably include COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease, much like influenza. But in the near term, scientists are contemplating a new normal that does not include herd immunity. Here are some of the reasons behind this mindset, and what they mean for the next year of the pandemic.

“Herd immunity is only relevant if we have a transmission-blocking vaccine. If we don’t, then the only way to get herd immunity in the population is to give everyone the vaccine,” says Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Vaccine effectiveness for halting transmission needs to be “pretty darn high” for herd immunity to matter, she says, and at the moment, the data aren’t conclusive.

A vaccine’s ability to block transmission doesn’t need to be 100% to make a difference. Even 70% effectiveness would be “amazing”, says Samuel Scarpino, a network scientist who studies infectious diseases at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. But there could still be a substantial amount of virus spread that would make it a lot harder to break transmission chains.

The speed and distribution of vaccine roll-outs matters for various reasons, says Matt Ferrari, an epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics in University Park. A perfectly coordinated global campaign could have wiped out COVID-19, he says, at least theoretically. “It’s a technically feasible thing, but in reality it’s very unlikely that we will achieve that on a global scale,” he says. There are huge variations in the efficiency of vaccine roll-outs between countries (see ‘Disparities in distribution’), and even within them.

Another important thing to consider, Bansal says, is the geographical structure of herd immunity. “No community is an island, and the landscape of immunity that surrounds a community really matters,” she says. COVID-19 has occurred in clusters across the United States as a result of people’s behaviour or local policies. Previous vaccination efforts suggest that uptake will tend to cluster geographically, too, Bansal adds. Localized resistance to the measles vaccination, for example, has resulted in small pockets of disease resurgence. “Geographic clustering is going to make the path to herd immunity a lot less of a straight line, and essentially means we’ll be playing a game of whack-a-mole with COVID outbreaks.”

Even as vaccine roll-out plans face distribution and allocation hurdles, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 are sprouting up that might be more transmissible and resistant to vaccines. “We’re in a race with the new variants,” says Sara Del Valle, a mathematical and computational epidemiologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The longer it takes to stem transmission of the virus, the more time these variants have to emerge and spread, she says.

"Calculations for herd immunity consider two sources of individual immunity — vaccines and natural infection. People who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 seem to develop some immunity to the virus, but how long that lasts remains a question, Bansal says. Given what’s known about other coronaviruses and the preliminary evidence for SARS-CoV-2, it seems that infection-associated immunity wanes over time, so that needs to be factored in to calculations. “We’re still lacking conclusive data on waning immunity, but we do know it’s not zero and not 100,” Bansal says."

Ending transmission of the virus is one way to return to normal. But another could be preventing severe disease and death, says Stefan Flasche, a vaccine epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Given what is known about COVID-19 so far, “reaching herd immunity through vaccines alone is going to be rather unlikely”, he says. It’s time for more realistic expectations. The vaccine is “an absolutely astonishing development”, but it’s unlikely to completely halt the spread, so we need to think of how we can live with the virus, Flasche says. This isn’t as grim as it might sound. Even without herd immunity, the ability to vaccinate vulnerable people seems to be reducing hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. The disease might not disappear any time soon, but its prominence is likely to wane.

I do hope that Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University, Samuel Scarpino, a network scientist who studies infectious diseases at Northeastern University, Matt Ferrari, an epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Dvir Aran, a biomedical data scientist at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, Sara Del Valle, a mathematical and computational epidemiologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Stefan Flasche, a vaccine epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, were able to shed some additional light on the subject.

[Kung Wu]

"And like people with the flu..."

You should stop right there.

Back to the drawing board!

So Fauci was wrong on a data point you have quoted multiple times recently and ... no comment?

[ShockerDropOut]

So Fauci was wrong on a data point you have quoted multiple times recently and ... no comment?

Fauci is either a liar or an idiot. Neither can be trusted.

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Fauci is either a liar or an idiot. Neither can be trusted.

Who told you to say that?

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So Fauci was wrong on a data point you have quoted multiple times recently and ... no comment?

Please source/quote so I can verify. I would actually be very interested in seeing Fauci caught in a legitimate (public) mistake. I've not seen one yet. I'm sure he makes a ton in his private life though. It's the job of the scientist to make a lot of mistakes in their search for truth.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/567930-fauci-asks-people-to-put-aside-concerns-of-personal-liberty-and

Fauci asks people to 'put aside' concerns of personal liberty and recognize 'common enemy' of COVID-19

Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Sunday called on vaccine-hesitant individuals to "put aside" their concerns about personal liberty and recognize the "common enemy" of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"You have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinated, but you also have to do mitigation, and that gets to the controversial issue of mask wearing, and the mandating of things. Mandating vaccines, for example, for teachers and ... personnel in the school," Fauci said while appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Fauci reiterated to guest host Nancy Cordes that although breakthrough cases are being seen in vaccinated individuals, it is the unvaccinated who are becoming seriously ill and dying.

"It's the unvaccinated that are doing that, so we have a lot of tasks. We've got to do mitigation. Put aside all of these issues of concern about liberties and personal liberties and realize we have a common enemy and that common enemy is the virus," Fauci said. "And we really have to go together to get on top of this. Otherwise, we're going to continue to suffer as we're seeing right now."

Fauci asking folks to set aside their personal liberties like an Authoritarian Gansta!!!!!

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While I appreciate your concern, and I'll admit it's a lot better to err on the cautious side with this insidious, alien, virus than to live in a world of delusion... your statement is just a little bit overdramatic based on the data we have now. Those vaccinated folks in the ICU are all north of 70, likely were vaccinated 5-6 mos. ago, and/or have compromised immune systems. There's also a tiny chance their vaccine wasn't stored properly. We all know how sensitive the Pfizer vaccines are to handling. Ultimately, these vaccines aren't 100%, but they are very, very effective STILL, in keeping you out of the hospital.

The bottom line is this, if you were vaccinated back in April and you are over 70, start looking for the Moderna option ASAP. That is the best advice I can give you at this time.

Also, if you are north of 50, you should have an oximeter in your home.

P.S. Costco shows that they have Moderna in stock.

https://www.vaccines.gov/search/?gcl...caApc0EALw_wcB

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/567930-fauci-asks-people-to-put-aside-concerns-of-personal-liberty-and

Cordes also asked Fauci if individuals eligible for a third booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine should get a Moderna shot, regardless of their initials doses, noting a recent a study that found Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is more effect than Pfizer's at stopping the delta variant.

Fauci, however, disagreed with that suggestion.

"First of all, it's a preprint study, It hasn't been fully peer-reviewed and I don't doubt what they're seeing, but there are a lot of confounding variables," he said.

Dr. Fauci says, "Not so fast!" on the Moderna booster. I'll defer to THE authority on the issue at hand and wait until the study is more thoroughly reviewed.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-13/the-world-may-never-reach-herd-immunity-against-covid-19

The World May Never Reach Herd Immunity Against Covid-19

As Covid-19 surged last year, governments worldwide touted the hope of “herd immunity,” a promised land where the virus stopped spreading exponentially because enough people were protected against it. That’s now looking like a fantasy.

The thinking was that the pandemic would ebb and then mostly fade once a chunk of the population, possibly 60% to 70%, was vaccinated or had resistance through a previous infection. But new variants like delta, which are more transmissible and been shown to evade these protections in some cases, are moving the bar for herd immunity near impossibly high levels.

Delta is spurring widening outbreaks in countries like the U.S. and U.K. that have already been walloped by the virus, and presumably have some measure of natural immunity in addition to vaccination rates of more than 50%. It’s also hitting nations that have until now managed to keep the virus out almost entirely, like Australia and China.

This month, the Infectious Diseases Society of America estimated that delta had pushed the threshold for herd immunity to well over 80% and possibly close to 90%. Public health officials like Anthony Fauci have drawn controversy by shifting the goalposts over the past year, increasing the number of people who need protection before hitting herd immunity. Meanwhile, vaccine hesitancy and supply issues mean most countries won’t get close to even the original numbers.

“Will we get to herd immunity? No, very unlikely, by definition,” said Greg Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Even a vaccination rate of as high as 95% wouldn’t achieve it, he said. “It is a neck and neck race between the development of ever more highly transmissible variants which develop the capacity to evade immunity, and immunization rates.”

Nature isn’t going to solve the problem, either. It’s unclear how long natural immunity gained from surviving Covid-19 will last, and whether it will be effective at fighting off new strains. Future variants, including some that could evade immunity even more efficiently than delta, raise questions about how -- and when -- this will be over.

“If it was as simple as getting the infection once means you are immune for life, that would be great, but I don’t think that’s the case,” said S.V. Mahadevan, director of South Asia Outreach at the Center for Asian Health Research and Education at Stanford University Medical Center. “That’s a troubling problem.”

Already there are signs that some people, and some places -- like Brazil and other countries in South America -- are being battered a second time by newer strains.

Without herd immunity, the virus could linger for decades in some form, possibly forcing the world’s most powerful nations to adjust their diverging strategies on opening borders and economies.

Herd immunity is a real thing, protecting much of the world against viral threats from the measles to polio. Scientists credit it for helping eradicate smallpox. Having herd immunity as a goal likely helped the world embrace measures like wearing masks and social distancing. But it also created a false narrative.

“The focus on ‘herd immunity’ has, in my view, been quite damaging,” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist and expert in communicable disease dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It presents people with an unrealistic vision of how the pandemic comes to a close and doesn’t account for the evolution of either the virus or the nature of disease in reinfections.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/herd-immunity-is-mythical-with-the-covid-delta-variant-experts-say.html

Here’s why herd immunity from Covid is ‘mythical’ with the delta variant

LONDON — Achieving herd immunity with Covid vaccines when the highly infectious delta variant is spreading is “not a possibility,” a leading epidemiologist said.

Experts agree on several reasons why such a goal — where overall immunity in a population is reached and the spread of the virus is stopped — is not likely.

Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told British lawmakers Tuesday that as Covid vaccines did not stop the spread of the virus entirely — with vaccinated people still able to be infected and transmit the virus — the idea of achieving herd immunity was “mythical.”

“I think we are in a situation here with this current variant where herd immunity is not a possibility because it still infects vaccinated individuals,” said Pollard, one of the lead researchers in the creation of the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine.

“And that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus. That might not be this month or next month, it might be next year, but at some point they will meet the virus and we don’t have anything that will stop that transmission.”

What is herd immunity?


Put simply, herd immunity relates to the idea that a high level of immunity to a virus in a population can be achieved by both natural infection (through the forming of antibodies when the body fights a virus) and by vaccination.

The latter method is preferred as vaccines overwhelmingly create immunity without causing illness or adverse health complications, unlike the natural infection route.

The antibodies procured by natural infection and vaccination usually protect against future infection. If enough people in a population are immune this leads to lower rates of prevalence of disease or viruses in a community. If a virus has less opportunity to spread and infect, it can be greatly controlled or even eradicated.

With herd immunity, those who are not vaccinated (whether through choice or because they cannot be immunized at a given point — newborn babies, for example) are protected by the overall level of immunity present in a population.

Mass, successful vaccination programs have meant deadly, contagious viruses and diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and measles have been largely eradicated in parts of the world or greatly suppressed by vaccination programs and the herd immunity they foster.

Pollard noted on Tuesday that Covid, and the current virulent delta variant, are different. “The problem with this virus is [it is] not measles. If 95% of people were vaccinated against measles, the virus cannot transmit in the population,” he told the U.K.’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on the coronavirus.

Pollard said that while Covid vaccines might slow the spread of the virus — because fully vaccinated but infected people appeared, in studies, to shed less virus, giving the virus less opportunity to spread — new variants were likely to emerge that would also spread.

“I suspect that what the virus will throw up next is a variant which is perhaps even better at transmitting among vaccinated populations and so that’s even more of a reason not to be making a vaccine program around herd immunity.”

Listening to these words from Greg Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic, or Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, fills me with sadness. There was a time in 2020 where I would routinely attempt to calculate the actual expected number of infected in the U.S. I was always counting towards that 70% "magical" number. But when the facts change, so do my projections/expectations. The facts have changed with Covid and there's nothing I or anybody can do at this point.

I preached mitigation by masking/social distancing last year. This year I preach vaccination. These are/were/ our only weapons. Achieving Teh Hurd was something you kept in your back pocket like a lottery ticket. Maybe it's a winner. But we'll act like it won't be. THAT's the conservative strategy to follow when lives are at stake. Anybody acting/speaking brazenly about the eventuality of herd immunity while mocking those who preached separation, masking, and vaccines should... sit alone quietly and reflect.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

I need help writing a script so every time I click on a link in Cold’s post, it takes me here.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15629160

Once I get there it reminds me how much you should trust “science”.