7 ms·

Herd Immunity Is Near, Despite Fauci’s Denial

19 points by mrfusion 6y ago

SavageBeast 6y ago
I sometimes wonder if our current powers that be are comfortable with letting COVID ever go away. So far its been a wonderful justification to spend a lot of money and usurp a lot of powers not formerly accessible. I can almost see the politicians getting sweaty when faced with the prospect that COVID may soon no longer be an issue. No COVID means no emergency. No emergency means no need for drastic emergency actions. No more necessity for drastic actions means no more stimulus money and actual scrutiny of decisions being made. This business of "DON'T YOU SEE WE'RE AT WAR HERE? DON'T QUESTION ME!!" is personally very tiring already. COVID gave our leadership an emergency and a blank check to address it. They're not going to let go of that willingly. Left to their own devices they will have us all wearing 2 masks forever and continually living in fear such that we allow them to do as they please "for our own good - science and stuff". As spring begins to warm up where I'm living, I can see the public becoming unwilling to tolerate the local mask ordinance ( not backed by the state here ) about mid April. The high rise I live in mandates masks on penalty of a $300 fine and last night in the common gym area I saw not less than 7 people working out mask free. Its a topic of conversation in the elevators as well. I see signs that the public tolerance for this business is running out. We did what we had to when we needed to and the need for such measures is demonstrably coming to an end. Now we're going to have to fight to return to normal.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Vaslo 6y ago
  I have to say even me (who frankly leans right and is usually against most types of government aid that is dollars only) has tacitly supported stimulus since the problem is a government created problems. To be clear - Not that Covid is created by the government but instead that government is demanding that we do something to curb it and therefore is creating a hinderance to work. That hinderance is made up unfortunately of stimulus checks. So to have someone who is vehemently against stimulus in regular situations not putting up a resistance (and I know others like me) is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for those who support even mildly socialist concepts to push new spending and social welfare through. In that case, if you are someone wielding that power during a serious crisis, it’s going to be hard to let that go. As for the masks, despite being mandatory at my gym - if there are 100 people there, only 10-20 of us are wearing a mask. Disappointing but even if there are laws to mandate it, are police really going to run around and enforce it?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  In recent months, mainstream media has reported a great deal of concern that countries are using COVID as an excuse to crack down on the political opposition. Usually the examples given are countries in the developing world already regarded as non-free. But is there really no risk that stable Western nations, too, will be tempted to misuse laws? I don’t mean yours, where laws and enforcement of them have been relatively lax, but there are certainly reasons to be worried in Europe. France’s government was annoyed for months by the Yellow Vests protests but unable to make them go away. When it saw that instituting COVID restrictions got rid of those protests at the stroke of a pen, could this not motivate the state to maintain restrictions on gatherings for as long as possible? Elsewhere, curfews and laws against protests have benefited the governments in power, sending them to reelection, simply because opposition parties were not allowed to organize publicly and show their strength.
- felixgallo 6y ago
  This framing is patently ridiculous. Several hundred thousand people are dead because politicians failed to act effectively. Nobody wants anyone to wear 2 masks forever. "Science and stuff" and "for our own good" are not actually bad things. "We did what we had to when we needed to" is not true yet. We need to finish the job, instead of half-assing it. The WSJ Opinion page is not a place where reasoned thinking happens.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    "Nobody wants anyone to wear 2 masks forever." Don't say this. Among the scientific advisors to governments, there have been a few (thankfully a fringe who don’t have any real influence) who in media interviews have advocated mask wearing and even social distancing in perpetuity, even after COVID is long gone. This is because they want to get rid of influenza, too, or they want public-health practices in place that could stop the next pandemic from ever starting at all.
    - wetmore 6y ago
      Do you have any links? Sounds interesting. I definitely don't want mask wearing and social distancing to continue in perpetuity but I do hope that wearing a mask when you are feeling sick but still out in public becomes normalized.
      - mrfusion 6y ago
        I do agree but even better would be universal paid sick days so they don’t have to even go out. I wonder if masks are a cop out for real, effective disease mitigation. (BTW I’ve been called an anti masker for asking this.)
    - hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
      > even after COVID is long gone COVID is very likely to become an endemic disease, so it probably won't be going away. Of course the best way to deal with that is vaccination, but there are anti-vaxxers so masks will probably become more of a fixture. Not because of an overzealous adviser, but because of people's stupidity.
- keenreed 6y ago
  Some countries kept revolution going for 50 years. Maybe you will not wear a mask, and smirk how you won, but system always gets its fair cut.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  Where I live the local government is watching the data and removing restrictions as cases go down. Their justification from the beginning has been to not overwhelm hospitals, and their actions seem to be in line with that. If you live some place where your government is just itching to gain more power over people, I’d say you need to elect better government.
- hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
  You are typical of why this pandemic has been so bad and deadly, besides some fecklessness early in the pandemic by the authorities. Basically there are two groups of people: one group (let's call them 'young people') are not very unlikely to die or suffer from this disease but are very inconvenienced by the various restrictions. Your "We did what we had to when we needed to and the need for such measures is demonstrably coming to an end." really illustrates that. You're unilaterally declaring it over because you're tired of your freedoms being impinged and you're ready to move on. Meanwhile the science doesn't support your view. And that brings me to the other group (let's call them 'old people'): these people are much more likely do die and don't have that much scope for protecting themselves reliably. Or maybe they can but they have been led to believe in the attitude of the 'young people'. They pay the price for people not wearing masks, not taking the disease seriously and acting recklessly. And that's the insidiousness of it. One group plays, the other group pays. It reveals something discomforting about our society which we think is highly civilized but really is so casually indifferent to other people's death and suffering.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    There is at least a third group: people neither at risk nor majorly inconvenienced who sympathize with the "young people". I am nearly middled-aged myself and living in the countryside and remote-working for years already, so I am not very inconvenienced. But I want restrictions lifted so that people in their teens and twenties can have their big festivities, courtship rituals, etc. The COVID lockdowns have been the biggest betrayal of youth since May '68, and their loss of freedoms offends me more than the deaths of the old.
    - offtop5 6y ago
      Thanks for the insight. I'd be more worried for those who work festivals, events , bars , restaurants, etc. Millions of life have been destroyed. I like to put it this way , the worst thing that's happened to me since Corona started, is I no longer have places to meet people. But the folks who staff those places , bars , concerts, etc ,are out of work. Not very fun to be jobless when rent is still due and your kids still need to eat.
- caeril 6y ago
  Don't worry, there's always another spectre lurking in the dark. Firearms and vague "white supremacy" are up next. We also have Syria, Iran, and North Korea as solid go-to options as we await the placid shepherding that is the NFL season.
- ddingus 6y ago
  "Go away" "Fight to return to normal" How many realize COVID-19 is endemic, will continue to mutate and will be with us for the foreseeable future? Those among us, who remain vulnerable either matter, or they do not, which is it? "We" is who exactly? Does the "we" body of people include people living (very carefully) with immunodeficiency, those without access to doctors, no insurance, elderly, survivors of the dead? How many are aware pandemics and the medicine, science, various other impacts play out on multi year timelines? When is the last time nature abided by human preferences? Please, no response is needed to the above, just rhetorical questions as food for thought. Frankly, politicizing COVID-19, as well as denying the reality of it did us and the world a lot of harm. I do not disagree with you on the basic idea of politicians leveraging any shiny thing to avoid hard legislation long overdue. I do not find conflating that with COVID-19 realities all that useful. COVID-19 is still novel. There is a ton we do not know and we have yet to get the data we need to proceed in a more definitive way, and for sure lack what is needed to basically ignore it per normal. We are going to get some of that data the hard way as some parts of the world, and the US are choosing to behave as if it has "gone away." Finally, "we" absolutely did not do what was needed and a lot of people died, who did not have to die. The numbers, variant strains and their potential impacts remain with us and are at levels well above those that triggered (our poor) actions in the first place. The only real difference I can see is more nebulous publishing of that information coupled with more aggressive signaling it is all OK now. We lack the data needed to make that assessment. We also lack the data to fully understand what "normal" will end up looking like too. It won't look like it did before. It could look similar, depending on how nature plays out and how good both our understanding and response to said understanding actually is. The US track record is poor so far.
- aiphox 6y ago
  There has been an emergency for a long time before covid. Covid has given the government the motivation to address it, at least in small part. Before covid, many people where overworked, underpaid, or unemployed completely, sick and dying needlessly.
- listenallyall 6y ago
  Replace COVID with climate change, your comment would still be just as true.
offtop5 6y ago
People are past the point of caring, if I really wanted to go out to a bar tonight, I could drive to one of the states which allow it. Even the meetup groups in my area, are all revving to resume in person events. I strongly suspect most people are going to do whatever the hell they want the moment they get the vaccine. The economy is still going to take a long time to recover, even if tomorrow covid just disappeared it would probably take a couple of years for the jobs to come back. Most of us hacker News folks are comfortable upper middle class, we work remote. Working class people have been taken through the ringer for this I know if I was making a middle-class income as a bartender, Corona happened and my income evaporated I'd be a mix of upset and depressed.
notananthem 6y ago
Why even link this trash?
staticman2 6y ago
Nobody should be getting facts from the opinion section of a newspaper.
- joshgev 6y ago
  While I appreciate the sentiment generally, I think this opinion, at least expressed as it is here, is a little exaggerated. In this case the author is a doctor, which probably makes him more qualified than your average Fox News commentator. He's a surgeon, though, so he probably isn't the most qualified person so, sure, grain of salt etc. What if this had been an opinion piece from an esteemed epidemiologist? Should we still disregard what they say? Generally, I think the best strategy is to be open to what people might have to say if one is also diligent about checking sources. EDIT: Missing words.
- TylerE 6y ago
  Especially not the WSJ which leans incredibly right and pro-big business. They’ve been publishing bad COVID takes since the beginning of the crisis.
- dang 6y ago
  Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
electric_muse 6y ago
The variants — and their uncertain effect on immunity (natural or vaccine-induced) mean that herd immunity is not that helpful of a concept to track. What matters are the data on infection rate.
- rurban 6y ago
  With the infection rate being highly erroneous, largely dependent on the testing rate, the test quality, the immense rate of asymptotic infections and the extremely high false positive rate of some tests, the best data is still the hospitalization rate. Relying on the infection rate with these unknowns is unreliable. Reminds me in the middle ages to find out who is a witch or not. They thought of themselves highly scientific and rational those times. Better burn some more witches than letting some escape.
gumby 6y ago
Note: this is part of the WSJ “opinion” section, separate from the news division.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joshgev 6y ago
Many people are quick to say that no one should trust an opinion piece (some claiming further that WSJ in particular is suspect). People should be cautious of anything they read from any source. Further, just because an idea is expressed in an opinion piece doesn't automatically make it invalid. In this case it is not difficult to get at the cited document from which the author's claims are drawn. For those interested, it is available here: https://www.cmadocs.org/Portals/CMA/files/webinars/COVID-19%20Virtual%20Grand%20Rounds%20Slides%20(03-09-2021).pdf https://www.cmadocs.org/Portals/CMA/files/webinars/COVID-19%... These data don't necessarily mean anything without an understanding of the context, but they are definitely useful and shouldn't be ignored out of hand, even if the author is using them to support a conclusion different than your own. In other words: accept the data for what it is worth and then use it to form/strengthen a reasonable conclusion. EDIT: Punctuation
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/yKKNj https://archive.is/yKKNj

19 points by mrfusion 6y ago

I sometimes wonder if our current powers that be are comfortable with letting COVID ever go away. So far its been a wonderful justification to spend a lot of money and usurp a lot of powers not formerly accessible. I can almost see the politicians getting sweaty when faced with the prospect that COVID may soon no longer be an issue. No COVID means no emergency. No emergency means no need for drastic emergency actions. No more necessity for drastic actions means no more stimulus money and actual scrutiny of decisions being made. This business of "DON'T YOU SEE WE'RE AT WAR HERE? DON'T QUESTION ME!!" is personally very tiring already. COVID gave our leadership an emergency and a blank check to address it. They're not going to let go of that willingly. Left to their own devices they will have us all wearing 2 masks forever and continually living in fear such that we allow them to do as they please "for our own good - science and stuff". As spring begins to warm up where I'm living, I can see the public becoming unwilling to tolerate the local mask ordinance ( not backed by the state here ) about mid April. The high rise I live in mandates masks on penalty of a $300 fine and last night in the common gym area I saw not less than 7 people working out mask free. Its a topic of conversation in the elevators as well. I see signs that the public tolerance for this business is running out. We did what we had to when we needed to and the need for such measures is demonstrably coming to an end. Now we're going to have to fight to return to normal.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Vaslo 6y ago
I have to say even me (who frankly leans right and is usually against most types of government aid that is dollars only) has tacitly supported stimulus since the problem is a government created problems. To be clear - Not that Covid is created by the government but instead that government is demanding that we do something to curb it and therefore is creating a hinderance to work. That hinderance is made up unfortunately of stimulus checks. So to have someone who is vehemently against stimulus in regular situations not putting up a resistance (and I know others like me) is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for those who support even mildly socialist concepts to push new spending and social welfare through. In that case, if you are someone wielding that power during a serious crisis, it’s going to be hard to let that go. As for the masks, despite being mandatory at my gym - if there are 100 people there, only 10-20 of us are wearing a mask. Disappointing but even if there are laws to mandate it, are police really going to run around and enforce it?
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
In recent months, mainstream media has reported a great deal of concern that countries are using COVID as an excuse to crack down on the political opposition. Usually the examples given are countries in the developing world already regarded as non-free. But is there really no risk that stable Western nations, too, will be tempted to misuse laws? I don’t mean yours, where laws and enforcement of them have been relatively lax, but there are certainly reasons to be worried in Europe. France’s government was annoyed for months by the Yellow Vests protests but unable to make them go away. When it saw that instituting COVID restrictions got rid of those protests at the stroke of a pen, could this not motivate the state to maintain restrictions on gatherings for as long as possible? Elsewhere, curfews and laws against protests have benefited the governments in power, sending them to reelection, simply because opposition parties were not allowed to organize publicly and show their strength.
felixgallo 6y ago
This framing is patently ridiculous. Several hundred thousand people are dead because politicians failed to act effectively. Nobody wants anyone to wear 2 masks forever. "Science and stuff" and "for our own good" are not actually bad things. "We did what we had to when we needed to" is not true yet. We need to finish the job, instead of half-assing it. The WSJ Opinion page is not a place where reasoned thinking happens.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  "Nobody wants anyone to wear 2 masks forever." Don't say this. Among the scientific advisors to governments, there have been a few (thankfully a fringe who don’t have any real influence) who in media interviews have advocated mask wearing and even social distancing in perpetuity, even after COVID is long gone. This is because they want to get rid of influenza, too, or they want public-health practices in place that could stop the next pandemic from ever starting at all.
  - wetmore 6y ago
    Do you have any links? Sounds interesting. I definitely don't want mask wearing and social distancing to continue in perpetuity but I do hope that wearing a mask when you are feeling sick but still out in public becomes normalized.
    - mrfusion 6y ago
      I do agree but even better would be universal paid sick days so they don’t have to even go out. I wonder if masks are a cop out for real, effective disease mitigation. (BTW I’ve been called an anti masker for asking this.)
  - hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
    > even after COVID is long gone COVID is very likely to become an endemic disease, so it probably won't be going away. Of course the best way to deal with that is vaccination, but there are anti-vaxxers so masks will probably become more of a fixture. Not because of an overzealous adviser, but because of people's stupidity.
keenreed 6y ago
Some countries kept revolution going for 50 years. Maybe you will not wear a mask, and smirk how you won, but system always gets its fair cut.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
Where I live the local government is watching the data and removing restrictions as cases go down. Their justification from the beginning has been to not overwhelm hospitals, and their actions seem to be in line with that. If you live some place where your government is just itching to gain more power over people, I’d say you need to elect better government.
hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
You are typical of why this pandemic has been so bad and deadly, besides some fecklessness early in the pandemic by the authorities. Basically there are two groups of people: one group (let's call them 'young people') are not very unlikely to die or suffer from this disease but are very inconvenienced by the various restrictions. Your "We did what we had to when we needed to and the need for such measures is demonstrably coming to an end." really illustrates that. You're unilaterally declaring it over because you're tired of your freedoms being impinged and you're ready to move on. Meanwhile the science doesn't support your view. And that brings me to the other group (let's call them 'old people'): these people are much more likely do die and don't have that much scope for protecting themselves reliably. Or maybe they can but they have been led to believe in the attitude of the 'young people'. They pay the price for people not wearing masks, not taking the disease seriously and acting recklessly. And that's the insidiousness of it. One group plays, the other group pays. It reveals something discomforting about our society which we think is highly civilized but really is so casually indifferent to other people's death and suffering.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  There is at least a third group: people neither at risk nor majorly inconvenienced who sympathize with the "young people". I am nearly middled-aged myself and living in the countryside and remote-working for years already, so I am not very inconvenienced. But I want restrictions lifted so that people in their teens and twenties can have their big festivities, courtship rituals, etc. The COVID lockdowns have been the biggest betrayal of youth since May '68, and their loss of freedoms offends me more than the deaths of the old.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    Thanks for the insight. I'd be more worried for those who work festivals, events , bars , restaurants, etc. Millions of life have been destroyed. I like to put it this way , the worst thing that's happened to me since Corona started, is I no longer have places to meet people. But the folks who staff those places , bars , concerts, etc ,are out of work. Not very fun to be jobless when rent is still due and your kids still need to eat.
caeril 6y ago
Don't worry, there's always another spectre lurking in the dark. Firearms and vague "white supremacy" are up next. We also have Syria, Iran, and North Korea as solid go-to options as we await the placid shepherding that is the NFL season.
ddingus 6y ago
"Go away" "Fight to return to normal" How many realize COVID-19 is endemic, will continue to mutate and will be with us for the foreseeable future? Those among us, who remain vulnerable either matter, or they do not, which is it? "We" is who exactly? Does the "we" body of people include people living (very carefully) with immunodeficiency, those without access to doctors, no insurance, elderly, survivors of the dead? How many are aware pandemics and the medicine, science, various other impacts play out on multi year timelines? When is the last time nature abided by human preferences? Please, no response is needed to the above, just rhetorical questions as food for thought. Frankly, politicizing COVID-19, as well as denying the reality of it did us and the world a lot of harm. I do not disagree with you on the basic idea of politicians leveraging any shiny thing to avoid hard legislation long overdue. I do not find conflating that with COVID-19 realities all that useful. COVID-19 is still novel. There is a ton we do not know and we have yet to get the data we need to proceed in a more definitive way, and for sure lack what is needed to basically ignore it per normal. We are going to get some of that data the hard way as some parts of the world, and the US are choosing to behave as if it has "gone away." Finally, "we" absolutely did not do what was needed and a lot of people died, who did not have to die. The numbers, variant strains and their potential impacts remain with us and are at levels well above those that triggered (our poor) actions in the first place. The only real difference I can see is more nebulous publishing of that information coupled with more aggressive signaling it is all OK now. We lack the data needed to make that assessment. We also lack the data to fully understand what "normal" will end up looking like too. It won't look like it did before. It could look similar, depending on how nature plays out and how good both our understanding and response to said understanding actually is. The US track record is poor so far.
aiphox 6y ago
There has been an emergency for a long time before covid. Covid has given the government the motivation to address it, at least in small part. Before covid, many people where overworked, underpaid, or unemployed completely, sick and dying needlessly.
listenallyall 6y ago
Replace COVID with climate change, your comment would still be just as true.

offtop5 6y ago

People are past the point of caring, if I really wanted to go out to a bar tonight, I could drive to one of the states which allow it. Even the meetup groups in my area, are all revving to resume in person events. I strongly suspect most people are going to do whatever the hell they want the moment they get the vaccine. The economy is still going to take a long time to recover, even if tomorrow covid just disappeared it would probably take a couple of years for the jobs to come back. Most of us hacker News folks are comfortable upper middle class, we work remote. Working class people have been taken through the ringer for this I know if I was making a middle-class income as a bartender, Corona happened and my income evaporated I'd be a mix of upset and depressed.

notananthem 6y ago

Why even link this trash?

staticman2 6y ago

Nobody should be getting facts from the opinion section of a newspaper.

joshgev 6y ago
While I appreciate the sentiment generally, I think this opinion, at least expressed as it is here, is a little exaggerated. In this case the author is a doctor, which probably makes him more qualified than your average Fox News commentator. He's a surgeon, though, so he probably isn't the most qualified person so, sure, grain of salt etc. What if this had been an opinion piece from an esteemed epidemiologist? Should we still disregard what they say? Generally, I think the best strategy is to be open to what people might have to say if one is also diligent about checking sources. EDIT: Missing words.
TylerE 6y ago
Especially not the WSJ which leans incredibly right and pro-big business. They’ve been publishing bad COVID takes since the beginning of the crisis.
dang 6y ago
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

electric_muse 6y ago

The variants — and their uncertain effect on immunity (natural or vaccine-induced) mean that herd immunity is not that helpful of a concept to track. What matters are the data on infection rate.

rurban 6y ago
With the infection rate being highly erroneous, largely dependent on the testing rate, the test quality, the immense rate of asymptotic infections and the extremely high false positive rate of some tests, the best data is still the hospitalization rate. Relying on the infection rate with these unknowns is unreliable. Reminds me in the middle ages to find out who is a witch or not. They thought of themselves highly scientific and rational those times. Better burn some more witches than letting some escape.

gumby 6y ago

Note: this is part of the WSJ “opinion” section, separate from the news division.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

joshgev 6y ago

Many people are quick to say that no one should trust an opinion piece (some claiming further that WSJ in particular is suspect). People should be cautious of anything they read from any source. Further, just because an idea is expressed in an opinion piece doesn't automatically make it invalid. In this case it is not difficult to get at the cited document from which the author's claims are drawn. For those interested, it is available here: https://www.cmadocs.org/Portals/CMA/files/webinars/COVID-19%20Virtual%20Grand%20Rounds%20Slides%20(03-09-2021).pdf https://www.cmadocs.org/Portals/CMA/files/webinars/COVID-19%... These data don't necessarily mean anything without an understanding of the context, but they are definitely useful and shouldn't be ignored out of hand, even if the author is using them to support a conclusion different than your own. In other words: accept the data for what it is worth and then use it to form/strengthen a reasonable conclusion. EDIT: Punctuation

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/yKKNj https://archive.is/yKKNj