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The interesting thing is that the herd immunity threshold, be it from vaccinations or from countless people becoming infected, depends on the R0. (I guess the h
by jnxx 6y ago
The interesting thing is that the herd immunity threshold, be it from vaccinations or from countless people becoming infected, depends on the R0. (I guess the herd immunity threshold is just 1/R0, because R0 times this threshold would need to approach 1. But I am not an expert....)
But, the R0 is not static. It is the number of average new cases one infected case causes. This also depends on what people do, how their housing and working situation is, and so on. If people practice social distancing and hygiene measures, this number is lower, therefore, by definition, the R0 is also lower. Because behavior is not static, the R0 is neither.
In other words, the R0 also depends on collective behavior - and so does the herd immunity threshold.
- 0xfffafaCrash 6y agoIndeed, as the article states: > ... the contagiousness of the virus isn’t a fixed biological constant. It’s the result of the biology of the virus interacting with human biology, with our environments, with our society. As seasons change, as our behavior changes, so can the transmissibility of the virus. The herd immunity threshold is not one fixed target. The following article (also meant for a general audience) in the Atlantic makes many of the same points regarding the impact of dynamism and heterogeneity: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immu... Unfortunately the messiness of reality makes it difficult to give clear answers to questions of public health policy and a roadmap for people who really just want a simpler and more certain timeline than the science allows.