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Israel may have achieved herd immunity against Covid-19

212 points by _Microft 6y ago

shablulman 6y ago
Go BiBi!
- philtar 6y ago
  Yes. Israel's Trump is single handedly responsible for this success.
  - mikevm 6y ago
    Calling Netanyahu "Israel's Trump" just shows that you're pretty much ignorant.
  - sahyooni 6y ago
    Israel's Trump? Bibi is MIT educated, warned about the dangers while Trump compared it to the flu, and repeatedly consulted with eminent scientists. There is no comparison.
  - tormeh 6y ago
    Not every populist is Trump-like.
    - mikevm 6y ago
      Show me a politician who's not a populist.
IgorPartola 6y ago
This gives me hope that the US can achieve the same despite some people not wanting to get their 5G shots. I think we can muster up 56%.
- brixon 6y ago
  5G Arm with a 4G Phone
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    I was really hoping T-Mobile would set up a vaccination site to troll the tin foil hat crowd. They just announced some major 5G promotions and I think this could be a major marketing move for them to combine the two.
    - clwaters 6y ago
      T-mobile is safe: There is no recorded incident in human history of getting a data rate above GPRS.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      You will unfortunately have an awful lot of people taking the troll site for face value (aka "biting the onion") - and by simple statistics, a non-zero value of people willing to act in real life. Especially Qanon believers have already proven they are willing to commit extraordinary violence, including storming the Capitol and shooting up a pizza parlor. In Europe, many phone and radio towers have been set ablaze. It is very unwise to bait these people.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        It is true that we do have people like that. At the same time catering to them will also do nothing and chances are they already made up their minds about getting vaccinated.
- volkl48 6y ago
  The recent polling I've seen on the topic is that 74% of US adults are willing to get vaccinated (or have been). And the trendline on the polling is that the % willing to get vaccinated is slowly climbing since the vaccine development successes were announced last fall. https://news.gallup.com/poll/342431/satisfaction-vaccine-rollout-surges.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/342431/satisfaction-vaccine-rol... I think we'll get there.
anovikov 6y ago
This is a rather meaningless, narrow-minded claim. Herd immunity is not a "binary" state which you either have in a country, or not. It doesn't magically turn from "0" to "1" when you cross a certain threshold of % of immunised population. It comes gradually when reproduction rate in different groups of population gradually crosses under 1, until (ideally) it does so for entire population. In case of Israel, certainly there is "herd immunity" for majority of population and certainly there is lack of it for significant minority groups.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  You are wrong. This actually is "binary" state. The reproduction rate is either higher than 1 or lower than 1. In any population, if the reproduction rate is lower than 1 the virus will be in decline BY DEFINITION. Now, some subpopulations might see reproduction factor higher than one but that is still not nullifying the previous statement. For example, the world might reach heard immunity even if Afghanistan and Russia are still seeing increase in cases. When they say "Israel" reached herd immunity they mean that, overall, the number of cases in Israel is falling. That's basically what it means. Additional assumption about "herd immunity" is that this decline will continue even if extraordinary restrictions are lifted, which means that the reproduction factor is low enough on basis of peoples' acquired immunity to be under 1.0000 even without restrictions.
  - makomk 6y ago
    No, this really isn't a binary state. In order for the reproduction rate to be a single, fixed figure which only depends on the level of immunity - which is what you need in order for herd immunity to be a binary thing - every person needs to be exactly as likely to infect every other person. Obviously this isn't remotely true, at all.
    - minitoar 6y ago
      I don’t understand why you couldn’t use the average rate of infection to compute this.
lmilcin 6y ago
So the issue is following: The longer the rest of the world population takes to achieve herd immunity the more surface we give to the virus to evolve with potentially disastrous consequences. The vaccine may be effective against currently known strains but nothing says it is going to be effective against future ones.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  My understanding is that they cleverly targeted the vaccine at a protein the virus needs to get into cells. Change it too much and the vaccine doesn’t work, but neither does the virus.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    We don't really know yet how far the virus can mutate and stay highly infectious. We could get lucky and be able to use the current vaccines for a long time, or we might need to rework them pretty soon (it's already being done or course, but we don't know how necessarily it will be to deploy the modified vaccines).
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    That assumes that the virus can't mutate a different way to get into the cell. Which is false assumption because there exists no single way to exist a cell. If this was true a single drug would be effective against all viruses. What is preventing DNA of multiple viruses to mix together and exchange some parts? You could argue that this is rather rare occurrence, but that is exactly the point. It happens sometimes and the more chances we give to the virus the more likely this happens in reality.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      It's a mistake to discount "this works well" because it doesn't necessarily work perfectly. Targeting the vaccine in a way that lessens the likelihood of mutations making it ineffective is a sensible approach. Thus far, data seems to show the mRNA vaccines being pretty resilient to the mutations out there. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/24/science.abg9175 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/24/scie...
mattlondon 6y ago
It is interesting this herd immunity thing. I don't think a single figure of 65-70% is nuanced enough. In the UK 60% of the adult population have had the jab now, but people without health conditions under 50 have not yet had anything at all - not even their first dose. Those under 18 are not even scheduled to get it. So can we have "herd" immunity when the majority of the able-bodied working-age population and school kids are not protected yet? From what I've seen in media and data (http://coronavirus.data.gov.uk http://coronavirus.data.gov.uk), the virus is running rampant in teenagers now, but everyone is apparently cool with that because "kids don't get sick from it" (ignoring any long-covid repercussions, which seems foolish to me) Its all well and good making sure at 100% of 75+ year olds are protected, but they're not exactly representative of the people out and about mixing with strangers in shops/workplaces/bars/public transport/gyms/cafes etc
- iso1631 6y ago
  > In the UK 60% of the adult population have had the jab now First jab Israel has 56% of people fully vaccinated, Chile 22%, US 19% UK is just 8% > but everyone is apparently cool with that because "kids don't get sick from it" The government and media don't give a stuff about anyone under the age of 50, certainly not under 40.
  - _joel 6y ago
    It'll be interesting to see if they enforce covid passports whilst a large swathe of the population is still not eligible to have a single vaccine dose, let alone have had both
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      They will, but those not eligible will just get an automatic passport. They need that system anyway for babies too young to be vaccinated, people with health issues making the vaccine inadvisable, etc.
mamon 6y ago
Oh, so that's why they stopped paying Pfizer for the vaccines :) https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-pfizer-holds-back-vaccine-late-payment-20210406-xlqxxn7ubzc3bl4oyy2m22frfq-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-pfizer-hold...
- possiblewelfare 6y ago
  Israel is literally a welfare queen. Unfortunately criminal charges can be brought upon me for mentioning that. (In my state)
- dmichulke 6y ago
  "Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries"
  - joaomacp 6y ago
    https://outline.com/xsne6f https://outline.com/xsne6f
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jjjeii3 6y ago
In the UK, 47% of people are already vaccinated and in Germany it's only 12%... With that numbers I wonder how long will it take, until another country will leave the EU...
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Depends; the UK is paying more for the vaccines than Europe did, because Europe got a good trade deal. Which they invited the UK to participate in, but they declined. I mean on the plus side, they got more vaccines faster. On the downside, they're already economically downtrodden due to the Brexit debacle + companies leaving. Second, I'm confident those companies will be destroyed with fines for not fulfilling their contract to the UK, to the point where they 'found' nearly 30 million doses in Italy bound for exports. The facility that produced these vaccines (based in the Netherlands) wasn't even approved yet for producing things for within Europe - not because they're unfit, but because the company (AstraZeneca) never even filed the request. But surprise surprise, that production company was approved for use in the UK.
  - thehappypm 6y ago
    "A good trade deal" is laughable here. Vaccines cost less than $100 per person, in the West that's a tiny, tiny price to pay.
    - selectodude 6y ago
      The US is paying the most for vaccines and they're paying $20/dose for BioNTech/Pfizer.
      - simplyaccont 6y ago
        Actually Israel paying the most. 36$ per dose for Pfizer/Moderna
        selectodude 6y ago
DSingularity 6y ago
And yet they still ignore vaccinating the people they occupy who are presently going through an outbreak.
- sahyooni 6y ago
  The Palestinians rejected medical aid out of spite: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/21/palestinian-authority-rejects-uae-aid-sent-via-israeli-airport https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/21/palestinian-authori...
  - lucideer 6y ago
    That article is from May 2020, and is completely unrelated to covid or vaccines.
- simplyaccont 6y ago
  a) have no obligation to vaccinate under agreements signed b) despite "a", vaccinating some of them
throwaway4good 6y ago
How open is Israel about the vaccination and its rollout? I know it varies from country to country. Norway for example has been quite public and doing weekly reports on reported side-effects and investigation into severe cases whereas other countries have not. At present it must be possible for Israel to provide through-out statistics on side-effects, possibility of infection after shot 1, shot 2, effects of various variants, effects on overall mortality.
- benglish11 6y ago
  Israel only has Pfizer I believe, and they were able to secure early access by agreeing to share data and enroll in clinical trials. Here is one study based on real world data in Israel, there are others too: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/real-world-evidence-confirms-high-effectiveness-pfizer https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    Does all publicized data go through Pfizer?
    - nvr219 6y ago
      No
  - simplyaccont 6y ago
    Also Moderna
    - vxNsr 6y ago
      My understanding is they chose not to use the moderna vaccine at this time.
      - simplyaccont 6y ago
        My mother in Israel got vaccinated with Moderna. Also sister, I think.
VLM 6y ago
Considering herd immunity in the USA is an Apples to Oranges comparison. "Currently, Israel’s borders are closed to non-citizens except for first-degree relatives of citizens." vs The USA is the only country not permitted to have borders. Herd immunity in the USA will only be possible when all of Central and South America and Mexico have herd immunity.
- pyrophane 6y ago
  > The USA is the only country not permitted to have borders. I’m not sure I follow. Are you talking about inter-state travel or something else? As far as I know the US could prevent non-citizens from entering.
  - cglace 6y ago
    I think they are making a political point about closed borders being vilified by the left.
  - psychometry 6y ago
    It's an idiotic, racist dog whistle. Nothing more.
  - acdha 6y ago
    This is a common propaganda claim in American right-wing media: they’ll talk about “open borders” as if there’s any significant group calling for open, visa-free migration but it’s just not true. A majority of Americans support various reforms - e.g. for the large sectors of the economy which depend on undocumented migrants - but that’s all in the context of relatively minor tweaks the existing system, not getting rid of border controls entirely. If you aren’t aware that this is a common trope it sounds nonsensical because it’s so detached from any real proposal but people who don’t break out of that media bubble are convinced it’s real.
    - bluthru 6y ago
      >as if there’s any significant group calling for open, visa-free migration but it’s just not true There is a significant amount of people on the left that want to grant citizenship to anyone experiencing or will experience: violence, poverty, domestic abuse, and harsh climate conditions.
duckfang 6y ago
Does this include the Palestinians who are under apartheid rule from Israel? From news reports, the Palestinians are faring very badly with Covid.
- vxNsr 6y ago
  Please don’t make false claims to stir the pot. Anyone who uses apartheid to describe Israel is being disingenuous and only looking to troll. ETA: Israel was very open about offering the PLO the same vaccine they got, they were rejected out of hand (much in the same way the PLO rejected any peace deal no matter what Israel offered...hmmm.... I wonder who is at fault there) when Israel tried going through a third party to get them the vaccine they were also rejected. Basically everyone downvoting me is has an agenda.
- Clewza313 6y ago
  No, it does not. Only 2% of Palestinians have been vaccinated, and even that is mostly thanks to Chinese donations: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/vaccines-urgently-needed-palestine-struggles-under-surge-covid https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    The article you posted has clear anti-Israel bent. Not only is it alarmist in nature but it entirely ignores the fact that Israel has been trying to get the PLO the vax for months. Think for a second: most PLO workers work in Israel... wouldn’t Israel do everything in its power to ensure a population that enters their country every day is just as vaccinated as its own? If you take your anti-Semitic goggles off you’d realize your claims not only don’t exist in reality they don’t even pass the smell test.
    - jsight 6y ago
      Can you provide a reference for this claim that Israel offered the vaccine and was rejected? I have no claims one way or another, just trying to understand it from unbiased (or at least minimally biased) sources.
Roark66 6y ago
Considering how well Israel dealt with vaccine procurement it is even more mind boggling how the EU Comission botched theirs. Not only they paid for the vaccine research upfront with no guarantees of preferential delivery, they also haggled ferociously for every last eurocent of per dose discount allowing the manufacturers to say "Fine, we'll give you a cheap unit price, but our delivery schedule is going to be on an 'best effort' basis". So EU is saving few euro per dose, but loosing tens of billions during extended lock downs. Then to add insult to injury few weeks after "all countries agreed to negotiate with the manufacturers together in solidarity" Germany openly said they will attempt to procure the vaccine by themselves in direct competition with the rest of EU. Guess who was leading the common procurement scheme? German politicians of course. Not a peep of disapproval was heard from the EU Commission... It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Don't even get me started on Germany announcing "the start of talks to sort out the procurement of Russian Sputnik V Vaccine" a day after all media report Putin is moving his military to set up to increase hostilities with Ukraine.
- jpdus 6y ago
  Besides that this comment has almost nothing to do with the topic, it is factually wrong on multiple levels. The only two things you got right: The EU completely botched Vaccine procurement and Ms. VdL, who is German, is ultimately responsible for that. Other than that: Germany was in advanced talks with multiple suppliers way earlier than most EU countries in Summer 2020, was able to spend more and even got offered priority supply from Biontech (which only supplies Germany and Turkey directly, all other countries are supplied through Pfizer). Chancellor Merkel specifically ordered these talks and procurement efforts to be stopped, so that in solidarity with other EU countries procurement would be centralized by the EU (which then did everything wrong without politicians, also German politicians, intervening). In hindsight it would've been way faster, cheaper and easier had Germany just procured enough vaccine for the whole EU on its own. The additional contract you mention was closed after the end of EU talks (not a few weeks after it started),is in no direct competition (as it will be delivered afterwards) and will he shared with other countries anyway. If you look at it from another angle: There is no other country in the world, where one of the best vaccines has been developed and is produced in vast quantities and that has been offered priority supply for the whole population, but declined that and exports way more vaccine than it is using itself. All while the economy is on shutdown and people are dying. I agree that (german) politicians did almost everything wrong in this crisis - but to accuse them of egoism is the last thing that would come to my mind.
cblackthornekc 6y ago
Ah, no wonder they decided they didn't want to pay their bill for vaccines anymore.
syntaxing 6y ago
Is there a mathematical definition for herd immunity? Or is it a bit more hand waving since the context changes so much for each scenario?
- js2 6y ago
  > The critical value, or [herd immunity] threshold, in a given population, is the point where the disease reaches an endemic steady state, which means that the infection level is neither growing nor declining exponentially. This threshold can be calculated... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Theoretical_basis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Theoretical_basi... But, it depends on a lot of real world factors: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4
- cactus2093 6y ago
  Mathematical and hand wavy are not necessarily opposites, often there is a lot of hand waving involved in the assumptions that reduce the real world conditions to the required conditions for the mathematical formula and that is certainly true when it comes to herd immunity. In particular treating R0 as a constant in the basic herd immunity equation is a huge leap to make.
MisterBastahrd 6y ago
Herd immunity doesn't mean "nobody will ever get it." It means "we can be reasonably assured that enough people are vaccinated that we won't have widespread outbreaks." People who think that herd immunity thinks that they can wander around without a vaccine and be complete fine are beclowning themselves, especially with a virus that is more like a cold for most of the population.
- oliv__ 6y ago
  If the virus is "more like a cold for most of the population", why do I need a vaccine?
  - MisterBastahrd 6y ago
    Because "most" is not "all" and people die from complications of colds, too. I've never been diagnosed with a flu in my life but I've had COVID twice. The first time, I was pulling strings of bloody mucus out of my throat and couldn't lay on my back and sleep for a week. The second time I lost my sense of taste and smell and it also wrecked my energy levels. I'm still not where I was before Dec 23 with regards to energy or tasting / smelling. It's not fun and nobody's invulnerable.
  - julianlam 6y ago
    Vaccination isn't only for yourself, it has demonstrable benefits for the community as well. Even at the macro level -- if you were not vaccinated, and contracted COVID-19, and later on passed it on to your parents or other elderly people, that is something entirely preventable.
    - loveistheanswer 6y ago
      >later on passed it on to your parents or other elderly people, that is something entirely preventable. Weren't those types of higher risk people the first ones to have the vaccine made available to them?
      - 6y ago
standardUser 6y ago
The fact that the rate of new vaccinations has slowed considerably in Israel gives us a unique look at Western(ish) nation at 50% fully vaccinated. The rate of new cases completely cratered as they approached that 50% mark and has stayed low and steady as the rate of new vaccinations has slowed. We might hit that same benchmark in the US by the end of this month, but we'll likely glide right past 50% since supply isn't expected to be an impediment.
- Goog_l_Dude_l 6y ago
  If you look at age distribution, the numbers are actually much higher for adults, but Israel has a very large proportion of children under 18. For adults over 40 the number is around 85%, for adults under 40 it's around 75%. This is the Israeli health ministry's dashboard in Hebrew, but you can use Google translate. https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?tileName=vaccinatedByAge https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?tileNam...
- codezero 6y ago
  TBH there are also global effects here - the infection rate cratered here too and we're only at 15% in California, but it was cratering already and new infections have been flat since the end of February / early March. There's a lot going on right now and I'm suspicious of any ad-hoc math given there are so many variables at play.
robertofmoria 6y ago
Are people still buying that Covid19, the China virus of 2019, is still a thing causing all these problems? How long does it take for one to look at all the data and ask some simple questions? 1 How accurate are the covid tests? Why is every postive considered a postive with no false postives, but negatives can be considered false negative. 2. How come the Flu and flu like virus have basically disappeared, but Covid numbers mirror past Flu and flu like viruses numbers? 3. Every governments model for Covid's lethality and spread have be completely wrong and overblown? 4. How does a virus have so many various symptoms? Could doctors be misdiagnosing the problem, especially when being misdiagnose is sadly very common? Could misdiagnosis cause inflated numbers and seriousness? Finally, why must herd immunity need to be so high? If only 15% of the population is ever going to catch it, if 30 to 40% is immune, would that not cut down the chances of catching a virus to acceptable numbers of everday problems. Also, risk accessment should be an individual right not controlled by government.
- pwned1 6y ago
  Ok, I'll bite, in the interest of open discussion. I'm as skeptical as they come when it comes to governments, but it's hard to dismiss the excess death numbers. There is no question that a lot more people than normal died from something over the last year, in the US and just about everywhere else. So if it isn't SARS-CoV-2, then what is it?
  - robertofmoria 6y ago
    You should check out Cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm The Comorbidities and other conditions section is very enlightening. Only 6% of deaths from Covid-19 were classified as only being from covid-19. On average 4 other conditions existed including but not limited to "Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning, and other adverse events. Under the CARES Act, medicare gives an extra (bonus if you will) 20% for covid-19 related services which includes death services. And #1 of concern is even the CDC defines covid-19 data as tested postive or presumed positive! As for why death tolls spiked in 2020, take your pick. Suicides, overdoses, riots/peacefull protests, gang crime skyrocketing, crime in general skyrocketing, less police enforcement... kind of a trend here. So Covid-19 is a virus, and it can even be fatal, but it is as dangerous as the flu. Yet civilization has stopped because of misinformation, the misinformed, and basic questions not being asked.
vitus 6y ago
> Approximately 56% of Israel’s 9.2 million citizens are vaccinated and another 15% (approximately 700,000 people) How do those numbers work, now? 15% of 9.2 million is 1.38 million, not 700k. Even NYT's tracking which has 835k positive cases for Israel falls far short of that number. (If you instead look at people with at least one shot, and people who've tested positive, then 70% makes more sense. But even that's an overestimate that doesn't account for overlaps between those groups.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
oliv__ 6y ago
>“There are no magic tricks here,” says Leshem. “If unvaccinated people travel without full quarantine and testing, we will increase the risk of reintroducing the disease to Israel.” Why? I thought they just mentioned there is herd immunity. Why would the disease be reintroduced if most of the population is immune?
- beisner 6y ago
  Even when a community has herd immunity, there are still individuals who won't have immunity within that group. Anyone who comes into the community with the virus can still spread it locally to the people around them - herd immunity only affects community spread, not individual spread. So when there's a pandemic raging on outside the country, free movement of unvaccinated people across the borders will necessarily mean that there will be cases domestically affecting the domestically unvaccinated. Until the entire world has herd immunity (a long time from now), if a community wants to drop caseloads to ~0, travel restrictions for the unvaccinated are one way to accomplish that. Whether that's just or fair or good policy, certainly up for debate.
cybert00th 6y ago
Sure that may be so, but at what cost? https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-scandal-of-israels-vaccine-bondage/ https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-scandal-of-israels-v...
hyperpallium2 6y ago
Theory: mutations create variants, including less deadly versions. In fact, variants less likely to cause symptoms will spread more, because carriers don't get tested, isolate or take any precautions. But their immune system still generates the antibodies. In effect: a natural spontaneous viral vaccine. It's similar to how viruses become less deadly over time (because they spread more if they don't kill their host), but I'm talking about the range of variants out in the community right now, not a platonic form that is representative of "the" disease.
- julianlam 6y ago
  Your theory, while attractive at face value, relies on one crucial assumption: that antibodies created to combat these less deadly variants are also effective against more deadly variants. We can't assume this for sure.
  - hyperpallium2 6y ago
    True, that is an assumption, but it may often be true. Similarly, deadlier variants can evolve that are resistant to an engineered vaccine. One can argue the defining features of a particular virus, and whether an evolved version is a variant or a novel virus. An antibody may detect features that are defining or others.
Animats 6y ago
Probably not. See the case and death graphs by country.[1] Right now, the UK has lower death rates than Israel. Israel's line is roughly flat, not heading all the way down to 0. Real herd immunity will result in a case rate that declines to 0. [1] https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areas=hun&areas=isr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&are...

212 points by _Microft 6y ago

shablulman 6y ago

Go BiBi!

philtar 6y ago
Yes. Israel's Trump is single handedly responsible for this success.
- mikevm 6y ago
  Calling Netanyahu "Israel's Trump" just shows that you're pretty much ignorant.
- sahyooni 6y ago
  Israel's Trump? Bibi is MIT educated, warned about the dangers while Trump compared it to the flu, and repeatedly consulted with eminent scientists. There is no comparison.
- tormeh 6y ago
  Not every populist is Trump-like.
  - mikevm 6y ago
    Show me a politician who's not a populist.

IgorPartola 6y ago

This gives me hope that the US can achieve the same despite some people not wanting to get their 5G shots. I think we can muster up 56%.

brixon 6y ago
5G Arm with a 4G Phone
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  I was really hoping T-Mobile would set up a vaccination site to troll the tin foil hat crowd. They just announced some major 5G promotions and I think this could be a major marketing move for them to combine the two.
  - clwaters 6y ago
    T-mobile is safe: There is no recorded incident in human history of getting a data rate above GPRS.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    You will unfortunately have an awful lot of people taking the troll site for face value (aka "biting the onion") - and by simple statistics, a non-zero value of people willing to act in real life. Especially Qanon believers have already proven they are willing to commit extraordinary violence, including storming the Capitol and shooting up a pizza parlor. In Europe, many phone and radio towers have been set ablaze. It is very unwise to bait these people.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      It is true that we do have people like that. At the same time catering to them will also do nothing and chances are they already made up their minds about getting vaccinated.
volkl48 6y ago
The recent polling I've seen on the topic is that 74% of US adults are willing to get vaccinated (or have been). And the trendline on the polling is that the % willing to get vaccinated is slowly climbing since the vaccine development successes were announced last fall. https://news.gallup.com/poll/342431/satisfaction-vaccine-rollout-surges.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/342431/satisfaction-vaccine-rol... I think we'll get there.

anovikov 6y ago

This is a rather meaningless, narrow-minded claim. Herd immunity is not a "binary" state which you either have in a country, or not. It doesn't magically turn from "0" to "1" when you cross a certain threshold of % of immunised population. It comes gradually when reproduction rate in different groups of population gradually crosses under 1, until (ideally) it does so for entire population. In case of Israel, certainly there is "herd immunity" for majority of population and certainly there is lack of it for significant minority groups.

lmilcin 6y ago
You are wrong. This actually is "binary" state. The reproduction rate is either higher than 1 or lower than 1. In any population, if the reproduction rate is lower than 1 the virus will be in decline BY DEFINITION. Now, some subpopulations might see reproduction factor higher than one but that is still not nullifying the previous statement. For example, the world might reach heard immunity even if Afghanistan and Russia are still seeing increase in cases. When they say "Israel" reached herd immunity they mean that, overall, the number of cases in Israel is falling. That's basically what it means. Additional assumption about "herd immunity" is that this decline will continue even if extraordinary restrictions are lifted, which means that the reproduction factor is low enough on basis of peoples' acquired immunity to be under 1.0000 even without restrictions.
- makomk 6y ago
  No, this really isn't a binary state. In order for the reproduction rate to be a single, fixed figure which only depends on the level of immunity - which is what you need in order for herd immunity to be a binary thing - every person needs to be exactly as likely to infect every other person. Obviously this isn't remotely true, at all.
  - minitoar 6y ago
    I don’t understand why you couldn’t use the average rate of infection to compute this.

lmilcin 6y ago

So the issue is following: The longer the rest of the world population takes to achieve herd immunity the more surface we give to the virus to evolve with potentially disastrous consequences. The vaccine may be effective against currently known strains but nothing says it is going to be effective against future ones.

ceejayoz 6y ago
My understanding is that they cleverly targeted the vaccine at a protein the virus needs to get into cells. Change it too much and the vaccine doesn’t work, but neither does the virus.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  We don't really know yet how far the virus can mutate and stay highly infectious. We could get lucky and be able to use the current vaccines for a long time, or we might need to rework them pretty soon (it's already being done or course, but we don't know how necessarily it will be to deploy the modified vaccines).
- lmilcin 6y ago
  That assumes that the virus can't mutate a different way to get into the cell. Which is false assumption because there exists no single way to exist a cell. If this was true a single drug would be effective against all viruses. What is preventing DNA of multiple viruses to mix together and exchange some parts? You could argue that this is rather rare occurrence, but that is exactly the point. It happens sometimes and the more chances we give to the virus the more likely this happens in reality.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    It's a mistake to discount "this works well" because it doesn't necessarily work perfectly. Targeting the vaccine in a way that lessens the likelihood of mutations making it ineffective is a sensible approach. Thus far, data seems to show the mRNA vaccines being pretty resilient to the mutations out there. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/24/science.abg9175 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/24/scie...

mattlondon 6y ago

It is interesting this herd immunity thing. I don't think a single figure of 65-70% is nuanced enough. In the UK 60% of the adult population have had the jab now, but people without health conditions under 50 have not yet had anything at all - not even their first dose. Those under 18 are not even scheduled to get it. So can we have "herd" immunity when the majority of the able-bodied working-age population and school kids are not protected yet? From what I've seen in media and data (http://coronavirus.data.gov.uk http://coronavirus.data.gov.uk), the virus is running rampant in teenagers now, but everyone is apparently cool with that because "kids don't get sick from it" (ignoring any long-covid repercussions, which seems foolish to me) Its all well and good making sure at 100% of 75+ year olds are protected, but they're not exactly representative of the people out and about mixing with strangers in shops/workplaces/bars/public transport/gyms/cafes etc

iso1631 6y ago
> In the UK 60% of the adult population have had the jab now First jab Israel has 56% of people fully vaccinated, Chile 22%, US 19% UK is just 8% > but everyone is apparently cool with that because "kids don't get sick from it" The government and media don't give a stuff about anyone under the age of 50, certainly not under 40.
- _joel 6y ago
  It'll be interesting to see if they enforce covid passports whilst a large swathe of the population is still not eligible to have a single vaccine dose, let alone have had both
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    They will, but those not eligible will just get an automatic passport. They need that system anyway for babies too young to be vaccinated, people with health issues making the vaccine inadvisable, etc.

mamon 6y ago

Oh, so that's why they stopped paying Pfizer for the vaccines :) https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-pfizer-holds-back-vaccine-late-payment-20210406-xlqxxn7ubzc3bl4oyy2m22frfq-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-covid-pfizer-hold...

possiblewelfare 6y ago
Israel is literally a welfare queen. Unfortunately criminal charges can be brought upon me for mentioning that. (In my state)
dmichulke 6y ago
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries"
- joaomacp 6y ago
  https://outline.com/xsne6f https://outline.com/xsne6f

deleted 6y ago

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jjjeii3 6y ago

In the UK, 47% of people are already vaccinated and in Germany it's only 12%... With that numbers I wonder how long will it take, until another country will leave the EU...

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Depends; the UK is paying more for the vaccines than Europe did, because Europe got a good trade deal. Which they invited the UK to participate in, but they declined. I mean on the plus side, they got more vaccines faster. On the downside, they're already economically downtrodden due to the Brexit debacle + companies leaving. Second, I'm confident those companies will be destroyed with fines for not fulfilling their contract to the UK, to the point where they 'found' nearly 30 million doses in Italy bound for exports. The facility that produced these vaccines (based in the Netherlands) wasn't even approved yet for producing things for within Europe - not because they're unfit, but because the company (AstraZeneca) never even filed the request. But surprise surprise, that production company was approved for use in the UK.
- thehappypm 6y ago
  "A good trade deal" is laughable here. Vaccines cost less than $100 per person, in the West that's a tiny, tiny price to pay.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    The US is paying the most for vaccines and they're paying $20/dose for BioNTech/Pfizer.
    - simplyaccont 6y ago
      Actually Israel paying the most. 36$ per dose for Pfizer/Moderna
      - selectodude 6y ago

DSingularity 6y ago

And yet they still ignore vaccinating the people they occupy who are presently going through an outbreak.

sahyooni 6y ago
The Palestinians rejected medical aid out of spite: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/21/palestinian-authority-rejects-uae-aid-sent-via-israeli-airport https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/5/21/palestinian-authori...
- lucideer 6y ago
  That article is from May 2020, and is completely unrelated to covid or vaccines.
simplyaccont 6y ago
a) have no obligation to vaccinate under agreements signed b) despite "a", vaccinating some of them

throwaway4good 6y ago

How open is Israel about the vaccination and its rollout? I know it varies from country to country. Norway for example has been quite public and doing weekly reports on reported side-effects and investigation into severe cases whereas other countries have not. At present it must be possible for Israel to provide through-out statistics on side-effects, possibility of infection after shot 1, shot 2, effects of various variants, effects on overall mortality.

benglish11 6y ago
Israel only has Pfizer I believe, and they were able to secure early access by agreeing to share data and enroll in clinical trials. Here is one study based on real world data in Israel, there are others too: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/real-world-evidence-confirms-high-effectiveness-pfizer https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  Does all publicized data go through Pfizer?
  - nvr219 6y ago
    No
- simplyaccont 6y ago
  Also Moderna
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    My understanding is they chose not to use the moderna vaccine at this time.
    - simplyaccont 6y ago
      My mother in Israel got vaccinated with Moderna. Also sister, I think.

VLM 6y ago

Considering herd immunity in the USA is an Apples to Oranges comparison. "Currently, Israel’s borders are closed to non-citizens except for first-degree relatives of citizens." vs The USA is the only country not permitted to have borders. Herd immunity in the USA will only be possible when all of Central and South America and Mexico have herd immunity.

pyrophane 6y ago
> The USA is the only country not permitted to have borders. I’m not sure I follow. Are you talking about inter-state travel or something else? As far as I know the US could prevent non-citizens from entering.
- cglace 6y ago
  I think they are making a political point about closed borders being vilified by the left.
- psychometry 6y ago
  It's an idiotic, racist dog whistle. Nothing more.
- acdha 6y ago
  This is a common propaganda claim in American right-wing media: they’ll talk about “open borders” as if there’s any significant group calling for open, visa-free migration but it’s just not true. A majority of Americans support various reforms - e.g. for the large sectors of the economy which depend on undocumented migrants - but that’s all in the context of relatively minor tweaks the existing system, not getting rid of border controls entirely. If you aren’t aware that this is a common trope it sounds nonsensical because it’s so detached from any real proposal but people who don’t break out of that media bubble are convinced it’s real.
  - bluthru 6y ago
    >as if there’s any significant group calling for open, visa-free migration but it’s just not true There is a significant amount of people on the left that want to grant citizenship to anyone experiencing or will experience: violence, poverty, domestic abuse, and harsh climate conditions.

duckfang 6y ago

Does this include the Palestinians who are under apartheid rule from Israel? From news reports, the Palestinians are faring very badly with Covid.

vxNsr 6y ago
Please don’t make false claims to stir the pot. Anyone who uses apartheid to describe Israel is being disingenuous and only looking to troll. ETA: Israel was very open about offering the PLO the same vaccine they got, they were rejected out of hand (much in the same way the PLO rejected any peace deal no matter what Israel offered...hmmm.... I wonder who is at fault there) when Israel tried going through a third party to get them the vaccine they were also rejected. Basically everyone downvoting me is has an agenda.
Clewza313 6y ago
No, it does not. Only 2% of Palestinians have been vaccinated, and even that is mostly thanks to Chinese donations: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/vaccines-urgently-needed-palestine-struggles-under-surge-covid https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...
- vxNsr 6y ago
  The article you posted has clear anti-Israel bent. Not only is it alarmist in nature but it entirely ignores the fact that Israel has been trying to get the PLO the vax for months. Think for a second: most PLO workers work in Israel... wouldn’t Israel do everything in its power to ensure a population that enters their country every day is just as vaccinated as its own? If you take your anti-Semitic goggles off you’d realize your claims not only don’t exist in reality they don’t even pass the smell test.
  - jsight 6y ago
    Can you provide a reference for this claim that Israel offered the vaccine and was rejected? I have no claims one way or another, just trying to understand it from unbiased (or at least minimally biased) sources.

Roark66 6y ago

Considering how well Israel dealt with vaccine procurement it is even more mind boggling how the EU Comission botched theirs. Not only they paid for the vaccine research upfront with no guarantees of preferential delivery, they also haggled ferociously for every last eurocent of per dose discount allowing the manufacturers to say "Fine, we'll give you a cheap unit price, but our delivery schedule is going to be on an 'best effort' basis". So EU is saving few euro per dose, but loosing tens of billions during extended lock downs. Then to add insult to injury few weeks after "all countries agreed to negotiate with the manufacturers together in solidarity" Germany openly said they will attempt to procure the vaccine by themselves in direct competition with the rest of EU. Guess who was leading the common procurement scheme? German politicians of course. Not a peep of disapproval was heard from the EU Commission... It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Don't even get me started on Germany announcing "the start of talks to sort out the procurement of Russian Sputnik V Vaccine" a day after all media report Putin is moving his military to set up to increase hostilities with Ukraine.

jpdus 6y ago
Besides that this comment has almost nothing to do with the topic, it is factually wrong on multiple levels. The only two things you got right: The EU completely botched Vaccine procurement and Ms. VdL, who is German, is ultimately responsible for that. Other than that: Germany was in advanced talks with multiple suppliers way earlier than most EU countries in Summer 2020, was able to spend more and even got offered priority supply from Biontech (which only supplies Germany and Turkey directly, all other countries are supplied through Pfizer). Chancellor Merkel specifically ordered these talks and procurement efforts to be stopped, so that in solidarity with other EU countries procurement would be centralized by the EU (which then did everything wrong without politicians, also German politicians, intervening). In hindsight it would've been way faster, cheaper and easier had Germany just procured enough vaccine for the whole EU on its own. The additional contract you mention was closed after the end of EU talks (not a few weeks after it started),is in no direct competition (as it will be delivered afterwards) and will he shared with other countries anyway. If you look at it from another angle: There is no other country in the world, where one of the best vaccines has been developed and is produced in vast quantities and that has been offered priority supply for the whole population, but declined that and exports way more vaccine than it is using itself. All while the economy is on shutdown and people are dying. I agree that (german) politicians did almost everything wrong in this crisis - but to accuse them of egoism is the last thing that would come to my mind.

cblackthornekc 6y ago

Ah, no wonder they decided they didn't want to pay their bill for vaccines anymore.

syntaxing 6y ago

Is there a mathematical definition for herd immunity? Or is it a bit more hand waving since the context changes so much for each scenario?

js2 6y ago
> The critical value, or [herd immunity] threshold, in a given population, is the point where the disease reaches an endemic steady state, which means that the infection level is neither growing nor declining exponentially. This threshold can be calculated... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Theoretical_basis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Theoretical_basi... But, it depends on a lot of real world factors: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4
cactus2093 6y ago
Mathematical and hand wavy are not necessarily opposites, often there is a lot of hand waving involved in the assumptions that reduce the real world conditions to the required conditions for the mathematical formula and that is certainly true when it comes to herd immunity. In particular treating R0 as a constant in the basic herd immunity equation is a huge leap to make.

MisterBastahrd 6y ago

Herd immunity doesn't mean "nobody will ever get it." It means "we can be reasonably assured that enough people are vaccinated that we won't have widespread outbreaks." People who think that herd immunity thinks that they can wander around without a vaccine and be complete fine are beclowning themselves, especially with a virus that is more like a cold for most of the population.

oliv__ 6y ago
If the virus is "more like a cold for most of the population", why do I need a vaccine?
- MisterBastahrd 6y ago
  Because "most" is not "all" and people die from complications of colds, too. I've never been diagnosed with a flu in my life but I've had COVID twice. The first time, I was pulling strings of bloody mucus out of my throat and couldn't lay on my back and sleep for a week. The second time I lost my sense of taste and smell and it also wrecked my energy levels. I'm still not where I was before Dec 23 with regards to energy or tasting / smelling. It's not fun and nobody's invulnerable.
- julianlam 6y ago
  Vaccination isn't only for yourself, it has demonstrable benefits for the community as well. Even at the macro level -- if you were not vaccinated, and contracted COVID-19, and later on passed it on to your parents or other elderly people, that is something entirely preventable.
  - loveistheanswer 6y ago
    >later on passed it on to your parents or other elderly people, that is something entirely preventable. Weren't those types of higher risk people the first ones to have the vaccine made available to them?
    - 6y ago

standardUser 6y ago

The fact that the rate of new vaccinations has slowed considerably in Israel gives us a unique look at Western(ish) nation at 50% fully vaccinated. The rate of new cases completely cratered as they approached that 50% mark and has stayed low and steady as the rate of new vaccinations has slowed. We might hit that same benchmark in the US by the end of this month, but we'll likely glide right past 50% since supply isn't expected to be an impediment.

Goog_l_Dude_l 6y ago
If you look at age distribution, the numbers are actually much higher for adults, but Israel has a very large proportion of children under 18. For adults over 40 the number is around 85%, for adults under 40 it's around 75%. This is the Israeli health ministry's dashboard in Hebrew, but you can use Google translate. https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?tileName=vaccinatedByAge https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/general?tileNam...
codezero 6y ago
TBH there are also global effects here - the infection rate cratered here too and we're only at 15% in California, but it was cratering already and new infections have been flat since the end of February / early March. There's a lot going on right now and I'm suspicious of any ad-hoc math given there are so many variables at play.

robertofmoria 6y ago

Are people still buying that Covid19, the China virus of 2019, is still a thing causing all these problems? How long does it take for one to look at all the data and ask some simple questions? 1 How accurate are the covid tests? Why is every postive considered a postive with no false postives, but negatives can be considered false negative. 2. How come the Flu and flu like virus have basically disappeared, but Covid numbers mirror past Flu and flu like viruses numbers? 3. Every governments model for Covid's lethality and spread have be completely wrong and overblown? 4. How does a virus have so many various symptoms? Could doctors be misdiagnosing the problem, especially when being misdiagnose is sadly very common? Could misdiagnosis cause inflated numbers and seriousness? Finally, why must herd immunity need to be so high? If only 15% of the population is ever going to catch it, if 30 to 40% is immune, would that not cut down the chances of catching a virus to acceptable numbers of everday problems. Also, risk accessment should be an individual right not controlled by government.

pwned1 6y ago
Ok, I'll bite, in the interest of open discussion. I'm as skeptical as they come when it comes to governments, but it's hard to dismiss the excess death numbers. There is no question that a lot more people than normal died from something over the last year, in the US and just about everywhere else. So if it isn't SARS-CoV-2, then what is it?
- robertofmoria 6y ago
  You should check out Cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm The Comorbidities and other conditions section is very enlightening. Only 6% of deaths from Covid-19 were classified as only being from covid-19. On average 4 other conditions existed including but not limited to "Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning, and other adverse events. Under the CARES Act, medicare gives an extra (bonus if you will) 20% for covid-19 related services which includes death services. And #1 of concern is even the CDC defines covid-19 data as tested postive or presumed positive! As for why death tolls spiked in 2020, take your pick. Suicides, overdoses, riots/peacefull protests, gang crime skyrocketing, crime in general skyrocketing, less police enforcement... kind of a trend here. So Covid-19 is a virus, and it can even be fatal, but it is as dangerous as the flu. Yet civilization has stopped because of misinformation, the misinformed, and basic questions not being asked.

vitus 6y ago

> Approximately 56% of Israel’s 9.2 million citizens are vaccinated and another 15% (approximately 700,000 people) How do those numbers work, now? 15% of 9.2 million is 1.38 million, not 700k. Even NYT's tracking which has 835k positive cases for Israel falls far short of that number. (If you instead look at people with at least one shot, and people who've tested positive, then 70% makes more sense. But even that's an overestimate that doesn't account for overlaps between those groups.)

deleted 6y ago
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oliv__ 6y ago

>“There are no magic tricks here,” says Leshem. “If unvaccinated people travel without full quarantine and testing, we will increase the risk of reintroducing the disease to Israel.” Why? I thought they just mentioned there is herd immunity. Why would the disease be reintroduced if most of the population is immune?

beisner 6y ago
Even when a community has herd immunity, there are still individuals who won't have immunity within that group. Anyone who comes into the community with the virus can still spread it locally to the people around them - herd immunity only affects community spread, not individual spread. So when there's a pandemic raging on outside the country, free movement of unvaccinated people across the borders will necessarily mean that there will be cases domestically affecting the domestically unvaccinated. Until the entire world has herd immunity (a long time from now), if a community wants to drop caseloads to ~0, travel restrictions for the unvaccinated are one way to accomplish that. Whether that's just or fair or good policy, certainly up for debate.

cybert00th 6y ago

Sure that may be so, but at what cost? https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-scandal-of-israels-vaccine-bondage/ https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-scandal-of-israels-v...

hyperpallium2 6y ago

Theory: mutations create variants, including less deadly versions. In fact, variants less likely to cause symptoms will spread more, because carriers don't get tested, isolate or take any precautions. But their immune system still generates the antibodies. In effect: a natural spontaneous viral vaccine. It's similar to how viruses become less deadly over time (because they spread more if they don't kill their host), but I'm talking about the range of variants out in the community right now, not a platonic form that is representative of "the" disease.

julianlam 6y ago
Your theory, while attractive at face value, relies on one crucial assumption: that antibodies created to combat these less deadly variants are also effective against more deadly variants. We can't assume this for sure.
- hyperpallium2 6y ago
  True, that is an assumption, but it may often be true. Similarly, deadlier variants can evolve that are resistant to an engineered vaccine. One can argue the defining features of a particular virus, and whether an evolved version is a variant or a novel virus. An antibody may detect features that are defining or others.

Animats 6y ago

Probably not. See the case and death graphs by country.[1] Right now, the UK has lower death rates than Israel. Israel's line is roughly flat, not heading all the way down to 0. Real herd immunity will result in a case rate that declines to 0. [1] https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areas=hun&areas=isr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&are...